Wire and Rain
by Soul of Ashes
Summary: Dark ambitions end. New journeys begin for old evils... Two men find the light that will save them. (COMPLETE) Yaoi: SephxAnsem
1. Introduction

Author's Notes: This is very much complete. It is the first fanfic in a two-fic thing that I'm doing. I have finished this a long time ago, but since then have recieved no more reviews. I wish to upload it again, and go through for final touch-ups... so I hope it will be satisfactory for everyone! Disclaimer: KH isn't mine, Sephy isn't... basically mostly all the characters are not mine save a few. *Smiles* 

Readers, enjoy!

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In the beginning, it was said, there was nothing.

Where is here? When is time, how do I calculate the passage of it? Is there time? Or was it a figment of my broken imagination, a result of the slow descent into madness? Is this death?

I am alone in this dismal place, and I walk through inky nothing, illuminated by light that is neither warm nor kind, but cold and empty. It brings me no comfort, lends me no hope at all. I cannot say that I live, nor am I dead. Truly, this is some kind of void to which all are sent. The Darkness can't even help me here. I don't hear it in my thoughts, I don't feel it in my veins.

I cannot see!

Where am I going?

Does it matter?

I breathe, but I do not breathe air. I walk upon nothing, yet am walking somewhere. 

Time passing.

I wonder if I am truly, really alone. I hate this. I hate it all, everything, anything that isn't here, yet I love it because I would love to have *something*, but there is nothing to be had. The air is stale. No wind blows here. No one passes me on my invisible path. I don't want to be alone. This...aloneness... it's eating me inside... twisting, writhing like a dragon, slowly digesting what remains of my reason... my name, what is my name...?

I remember my own destruction... I hear the Keyblade master's name, Sora, damn him, Sora echoing in my head..when I remember. He destroyed it all, locked the doors, the worlds, and in the midst of chaos and light had I been cast into this oblivion. Paradoxes sifted around me like ghosts, after I had begun to notice them. Abandoned streams of time, cast aside by Fate to this nowhere. They glide past me, streaming unhindered with memories that peopled them.

Cold. I feel cold! These streaming timelines never touched me, nor did I care. But I feel one, like a living creature, suddenly notice me. It wants me, a hungry destiny aching for a soul to see it through, and I scream when it seizes me in a cold, heartless embrace. I call upon magic that isn't there, weep for the Darkness that had guarded me so safely in life... white. Light. Piercing. It hurts, oh it hurts me it hurts it hurts--

* * * * *

A stranger lay on the cold ground, oblivious of the chilling rain that sifted through his mud-spattered white hair and weighed down on his white, calf-length leather coat. Around him, people wandered in aimless daze, as transparent as they were mindless, going about their preset destinies. As though they were fulfilling an ancient script, written by a demented playwright, fulfilling their roles blindly.

But the man on the ground was solid, glowed faintly, indicating his difference from them, that he was not apart of their destinies as they were apart of each other's.

The street was lined with ramshackle buildings, each two-stories high and nearly identicle in their architecture and condition. Names of shops, cafes, were the only things that made them different. Gray walls that might have been white - these creatures didn't care enough to look after their own surroundings. Leaking roofs adorned the tops, with no trace or scent of smoke rising from the chimneys.

Awareness tickled his nose, which had started to burn with traces of a cold. Or pneumonia. He lifted his eyes, prying them open as he sought energy from within, some hidden store of strength to do more, and locked his eyes on the slowly moving bodies around him. Pale-faced strangers, entirely black eyeballs that seemed to see yet not. Fathomless eyes, so familiar to his blurred memories. He trembled at the mere sight of them, and squeezed his eyes shut again, pressing the heel of his hand into the ground and pushing himself up.

He was filthy with mud from the rain, and as he began to move his body quaked violently so much from the frigid, dangerous cold. Several meters ahead of him he saw a building, a sign that declared it an Inn, but from the condition of the porch he didn't anyone with a brain in his head tended the rooms at all.

Where was this place? Although he was cold, possibly ill with fever, he was thrilled at the existence of 'things' around him, although shoddy and rather down-trodden. It was *something*, at least, and his thirsting senses soaked them up and relieved his exhausted, foundering mind.

He stood up, barely having time to avoid those unnerving ghosts which seemed blind to his existence, yet making no move to stop, or apologize, or even ask if he was alright.

He fixated his glittering golden-red eyes upon another building while he hugged himself for warmth, the bare flesh of his chest nearly caked with grime. He couldn't stop shaking, no matter how much he tried to hold still and reserve warmth. So he chose a direction and walked. The muddy streets sloshed under his boots, the rolling clouds above stretching into the horizon, endless, endless, sunlight merely something he must have dreamed.

Gradually he began to hate this town. This world. Consumed with frustration, he only began to realize twenty minutes later that he was walking in circles. He started to give up. Sagging against the side of a tavern, he moaned quietly in despair, wiping the rain from his brow.

"Someone..." he said quietly. "There has to be someone else but me here... please..."

He tipped his head back, his eyes beginning to drift shut when he saw ...smoke. In the sky. Some distance away, just around the block. Blinking, he stepped into the weak gray light of a torch hanging above the tavern entrance. He started toward the trace of smoke, quickly urging his aching limbs into a run as he shoved non-living aside, splashing through the mud, turning around the corner and twisting his foot slightly as he careened into another non-living. 

Further, he ran, smelling wood-smoke as he finally halted, collapsing into a particularly large puddle in front of the steps. This house, though shoddy, was slightly different from the others. It was a splotch of white in a sea of blackness, its shingles well-tended, its paneling relatively preserved. And the roof looked well-managed as well. And light, real light, firelight, filled each window. He sat shivering in the muck, regarding the building. He was tired, very tired... his strength, what little he had, drained from his body like blood from open wounds.

No one seemed to care that he was sitting there in the street. He wasn't sure if he saw people in the windows, but this warmth that glowed inside was too inviting to ignore. He would have given anything just to be inside and have that warmth.

Sliding his weight to his foot, he knelt awkwardly, before pushing himself up once more, and staggered again toward the porch, using the railing to aid him up underneath the eaves and away from the rain. His legs and his lungs burned, but he made himself go to the door, where he knocked, and slid against the paneling to his knees on the welcome mat.

The door opened a moment later, to the face of a young man, barely older than 17, gazing down at him with a slight frown. He had straw blonde hair, dark blue eyes, and a quirky smirk that seemed to blossom with darkness as he watched him.

"Another one," the teenager said, and stepped outside onto the porch, leaning to grab the stranger's arm and haul him to his feet and drag him inside. He plopped him in the middle of the carpet on a rug, and he started to tug his drenched jacket off of him.

* * * * *

"Ansem?" 

"Yes."

"And you're from where...?"

"It's hard to say."

The teenager called himself Sydney Losstarot, from a world apart. Ansem learned from him quickly that anyone captured in the timestreaming dragons were stuck there unless they passed harmlessly through. Passing through could take hours or days. Or years. Not that time mattered. In a place of death, this void was deathless.

"I've been here for twelve months," Sydney explained, crossing one leg calmly over the other. He wore a pair of smooth black pants, and an open collar shirt of the same color, with a choker around his throat, a fascinating cameo of opal set against the inviting white of his throat.

Ansem watched him, licking his lips slightly as he was suddenly very thirsty. He had been tossed a pair of warm thick leggings, socks, and a sweater to slip into while his rescuer prepared hot cocoa. His clothes were semi-clean, drying by the roaring fire. He was wrapped in a blanket, sipping a cup of hot cocoa. He didn't feel so terribly ill anymore, but he had a headache. The warmth felt good against his skin. He closed his gleaming eyes and turned his head away slightly. 

"Who...*what* are those creatures? Are they dead?" he whispered hoarsely.

Sydney shrugged his shoulders slightly, suddenly sitting up, shifting his legs langorously as he breathed. "Mm.. they were once alive, I think...but not quite dead now...I'm not sure. There might be others like us, too..."

"Where?"

"Other timestreams. But this one is the most hungry, I think. I've met a few dozen while I was here, passing through... I'm the only one who lives here."

"Where do they live?"

"Far away... you're the only one I've met yet that's new." Sydney smirked, and set his mug aside casually. "You're a rather beautiful newcomer, I might add... bad people, like me, who try to possess power and rule worlds with it... I think this is where we end up."

"Ah...so we end up here... the garbage of the universe, defeated and thus useless."

Useless...? Then why are we here?

"Because there's nothing for us to use... or even worth ruling. It's pointless. Look...just forget about it, Ansem. We do our best. Or we kill ourselves, and wander until another time takes us." Sydney rose and stood poised like a dancer, eyes flashing slightly as he gazed at him hungrily, laughing as Ansem's eyes narrowed at him in growing displeasure. "But stay awhile. I'm lonely. No one stays with me. I can tell you're different than the others. You're not stupid, nor too hungry for power. Oh, come on now, don't look at me so."

Sydney strode toward him, and sank into his lap, seizing his wrist as Ansem reached to push him off. "Get off me." 

"Why?" 

"This is entirely uncalled for! Bloody get off me now, or I'll *throw* you."

Sydney stiffened slightly, narrowing his eyes. They both knew that, without their magic, that Ansem had him pinned on strength and size alone. For he was a tall man, easily capable of over-turning him with his simple physical strength alone. Yet the teenager didn't release his wrist yet, but he closed his eyes, turning his face away in a quiet show of obeisance. But he did not move.

"I....I...." the teenager swallowed, before he turned, lunging against him and pressing his teeth against his throat. It was a hard bite, painful but not damaging and there was little the startled, outraged Ansem could do to prevent it. He seized his shoulders, pushing as he cried out in rage, in pain. 

"Y-You--!!!" He shoved him, felt the teenager release his teeth and stagger away from him. Ansem set the mug on the table next to him, sloshing some on his hand, while Sydney started to back away. "You BIT me!!"

"I bit you," Syd replied softly, looking down, the grin fading. "But I need you, don't you understand?"

"Fool... I need no one... And I don't intend to stay here for the rest of my life! I'm going to find a way out!"

"There isn't--"

"--lie! You fool, there's always a way out! ALWAYS!!" Ansem roared, feeling his head pounding with the rush of blood to his head. He rubbed his neck, running his hands through his drying hair before he glanced at his clothes, drying in front of the fire. His eyes seemed so desperate, to look for something familiar, something alive. Even the fire seemed so dismal.

"THERE IS NOT!! I've LOOKED, don't you see!? I have!! Some of my powers remain, but they dwindle. I can think of no way to escape this awful, damnable hell!!" Sydney was shaking, a blackness, not like the blackness of the non-living, slowly filling his eyes. And then his eyes bled black, tracing dark, thin lines across his cheek. Ansem's eyes suddenly found the streaks, and watched him in fascination, as they dripped, sliding down beneath his shirt, vanishing against his soft skin.

Ansem relaxed slowly, and straightened, noble and dark, and he pitied him. He felt the desperation leaking from him, and he felt reluctant to step outside and leave him, to walk among those frightening creatures who weren't even men. There was darkness in this boy's heart, plain as the black jagged lines on his face. He thrived on darkness, was a powerful carrier, and the darkness...attracted him, because he missed his own so much... he trembled, restraining his emotion which smashed like waves against his strength.

Sydney noticed he was not speaking, and raised his hands to show he meant no more bites or harm. He reached for him, and relaxed against the strength of Ansem's chest... he encircled his waist, and trembled.

"You haven't been here for such a short time, to act this way," Ansem murmured when he could trust his voice. "You've had *no* one at all to stay? Ah, poor creature..." He stroked his back, mixed feelings of regret and sadness twisting in his gut. And... what? He knew it, what this other want was, the same kind of want he felt for darkness, a desperate want, a thirsty, hungry want that would haunt him now for the rest of his existence here. Was it...

For Sydney?

"Ansem?" Sydney pulled away, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. The blackness drained from his eyes, they were now clear and blue again. "Forget it... go ahead and waste your time... you're all the same.... so completely selfish... All I ask is for some company."

"No, you're right, boy. Perhaps there is no escape... And I think I'm falling ill. I don't want to be alone either... I've walked so long, in that void, I'll go mad if I have to go through that again." He smiled slightly, pulling on Sydney's shirt slightly. The action suddenly seemed wrong to him, but he couldn't let go. 

Sydney thankfully turned around, and smiled, his mouth quirking deliciously. "Ah...alright... I'm not going anywhere, really... do you want to stay out here?" 

"Yes," he whispered, and he let go of his shirt to sit down on the blanket on the floor. He felt the young man against his side, pressing against him and kissing his neck where he had bitten him, muttering a little apology. He was older than he looked, he knew that because no young man was as young as he would seem - most indefinately it was Darkness that kept him young, Darkness which pulsed through the man's frame beneath his skin.

Ansem's resistence was futile. He'd never in his lifetime considered touching a man or woman before, as he was always too involved in his research of his beloved Heartless. (Riku--) Right now, his hands moved as his desire guided them, feeling Sydney's slight frame beneath the cool silk shirt. Sydney moaned softly, tightening his hands on his sweatpants as he lay against him.

"Take me," he heard him say into his sweater, reaching beneath it, growing accustomed to his bronzed skin. "Just...take me... I'm not going to resist, because I don't *want* to... it's been so long since anyone has ever--" 

Ansem shushed him, turning Sydney onto his back as his tongue slipped into his mouth, hearing him whine again. He tasted sweet, of cocoa and sugar, and it tasted marvelous. Lust burned in his loins, cascading through the backs of his legs as Sydney's lithe thighs slid around his waist, pulling him on top of him. He was helplessly crushed underneath him, but he hardly seemed to mind. Sydney's muscles twitched slightly, his arms resting around his neck, keeping him close. Warm.

A woman, almost, Ansem thought. But...not. He felt his groin, pressed as it was against his, throbbing painfully, and Sydney's voice spoke with a disquieting need. "You can't stop now... please, you just cannot stop now, not when...when we're this close to each other. Ansem, Ansem..."

His eyes squeezed shut, and he pulled away completely, falling onto the warm blanket as Sydney sat up, eyes glaring with near hatred. "I can't, boy, this isn't... this is--" He shook his head and clenched both of his hands in anger. Frustration sang through his veins, unfamiliar desire and more so, a deep-rooted shame that wouldn't let him continue. 

Sydney froze and remained where he sat... he closed his eyes instead, nodding. "You don't need to make love to me, if that's what you mean...just...be close to me, that's all...." A flicker of agony passed over his young, pale features until he lowered his eyes again

"I..I apologize, Sydney. I simply cannot... give you what will satisfy you. I'm not quite experienced..." He crawled over and curled up next to him, still tasting things he wished he hadn't, his desire crumbled beneath shame and confusion. He felt feverish... he was probably mad.

Sydney made no move to hold him or touch him, but he spoke almost inaudibly. "I met a man who looked like you once... when he was a newcomer.... I don't remember his name, but he has silver hair a little different from yours, and green eyes.. I don't know where he went...but.. creatures took him. He might still be in this world... but they took him, and I never saw him again."

" 'These' people?" Ansem relaxed a bit, looking away but just listening to his voice, his eyes fastened to the windows, where he watched the cold and endless downpour.

"No. There are others... hungry ones, who are a little more aware... and dangerous. They seek out defeated ones like us, and take us away... I don't know what they do, where they go...but when I saw them, I wanted to vomit. They are not to be controlled."

"Do you know where they went? Maybe I could go find him. If there are others who were trapped in this same Timestream, suppose we could get them all together-- What's so funny?"

"You sound like a friend of mine here... a long time ago... he said that maybe if people like us could live together, we could have peace..... I don't know where he is now, either... you're not going to stay, are you?" Sydney kept the emotion from his voice, and it was flat and empty. Ansem resisted the urge to look at him.

"I shall. But I am going to search for that man. Whether I do or don't find him, I'm coming back."

Sydney turned slightly, and pressed his mouth to his sleeve. He peered at him, and Ansem looked at him, his golden eyes softened very slightly. "Promise?"

"Of course... I've no where else to go..."

"Mm...alright... You feel hot, you ought to sleep..." Sydney sat up slightly, and patted his forehead slightly before he rose lightly and collected the mugs to bring them to the kitchen. In the growing darkness, Ansem pulled the blanket around him slowly, curling up into a ball.


	2. The Path of Least Resistence

Chapter 1 - The Path of Least Resistence

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Nearly every night was the same, a torture that kept Ansem awake for a nearly two hours after he had sought to go to sleep. Tonight, three days later, his hair gleamed and smelled somewhat good, at least, for here there were not to many pleasant smells to be had. But it was wood-smoke smell, intoxicating scent that it was which Sydney wore like a cologne.

It was this strong cologne he could smell now, listening to his breathing, his subtle movements as he slept nearby - a testament to what he could not allow himself to have.

And yet, why not?

There was no one in this world who would give a damn what he did. No, that wasn't true. There was one, and it was Ansem himself. He shivered in his sleep, tensing at Sydney rolled over again, and was drawn inexplicably toward Ansem's warmth.

He felt his stomach tighten. Sydney stretched his arm across his chest and mumbled incoherently in his sleep, pressing to his side. He wore sweatpants and T-shirt, the same as Ansem, but through even that fabric he sensed everything. Every curve. Every dip, every motion...

He would have to leave soon. He no longer felt terribly ill, and his coat and clothes were as clean as they'd ever be. In the morning, he decided. I'll write him a note. No... that would seem too cruel, a coward's way of saying good-bye. He tensed and shifted slightly, which disturbed Sydney's sleep all the more. He sucked in a breath as the Dark-infused creature slipped closer and gave a light grunt of appreciation.

No.

He would have to leave _now_.

Carefully, he disentangled himself from the child's grasp, sliding from the blankets until he stood a foot away from the bed and watched him sleep. The bed seemed twice as large, larger than it should be, and Sydney's body barely took up a third of the space. 

Get a grip on yourself, 'Sem. 

But he seems so alone...

NO.

He left the room as quietly as he could, feeling his limbs tense as his emotions fought every bit of reason that had led him to make this decision. A despair hung now over him, a cloud darker than any that would be overhead when he stepped outside. A consuming passionate anger toward the unfairness of it. Why shouldn't he stay? Perhaps others had come, like him, but Sydney merely lied to say that they hadn't. Perhaps they, too, had felt this way and wanted to stay. 

He didn't want to grow tired of Sydney, of this house and dreary town, but nor did he wish to leave him and drive him to a torment that no doubt had become part of his existence.

He said he'd come back. That would be enough. It *should* be enough.

Ansem no longer felt terribly hungry, but he took as much food as he could carry. Sydney had given him something the day before, something he called a "Seeker". A relic of useful power, as its possessor linked his mind to its seeking power and gave him the location of any true spirit for miles. He immersed himself in that power now, which was amazingly simple. He saw a detailed, however slightly fuzzy map of the surrounding areas, including the town and a distinct mountain range beyond. He turned himself slowly in the street, facing the mountains, and simply began walking. His tall shadowed form slipped in between gray, dilipidated buildings that towered over him like the corpses of dead beasts, grinning toothily or none at all.

His main reason for taking the alleyways at all was to avoid the phantom "non-living", for their very visage sent a shudder down to his still-living core. 

But he reached the edge of town around mid-morning, its borders vaguely marked by what remained of a picketed fence that circled around the perimeter. He crawled under through a broken hole, and gaped as he stood up.

There, toward the mountains, was a break in the clouds. A slash of blue sky and hesitant golden sunlight which marked the edge of a storm, and distant rainless clouds beyond. The mountains spiked up into them, as if reaching for the welcomed warmth of the sun, their stops glistening with saturated atmosphere and a small rainbow beyond that. He trembled in spite of himself, for _any_ sight of sunlight gave him some hope. Ansem trekked toward it, shouldering the bag of food-items he had taken with him.

Perhaps this wouldn't be so hard after all.

Spikes of pain jarred his mind from what would (laughably) call sleep. His logic fumbled for reality at once, stumbled uncertainly in the darkness that pervaded beyond his vision. Reason battled the impossible. Madness crept to steal him away into his nightmares once more, but the pain stabbed again, tightened on his throat and his body, until he couldn't even shut his eyes against the agony.

He moaned aloud, tossing his head, feeling the razor-sharp fangs around his neck tighten and shred his scabbed, raw throat, opening new portals through which his life's blood flowed freely. He stiffened and croaked pathetically, _ hearing them._

Little hungry demons clambered over his skin. He quaked in nausea at their clammy touch, their twisted nonsensical hyena-like chatter, their unsatiable, ravenous hunger.

They reached, not into his flesh, but *through* it, into his soul, and the madness seized him at once and he heard nothing else but their delighted shrieks and his deranged, hellish screaming. The more he struggled to shake them away, the more his skin was shredded, the more he bled. The more vicious they became.

How long would such a torment continue? Could he, despite everything, even count the hours? The days?

Eternities later, they left him and in their wake left silence and a throbbing, numbing emptiness that soon was followed by his companion, his release. His second torment. Sleep. Nightmares.

He closed his eyes against the burning darkness, once again unconscious to his bleak and monotonous hell of pain and hunger. He relinquished his mind to the dream, to memories that drifted in and out with the tide of sleep. Sometimes, he never remembered what he dreamed. Merely lived them. It was the closest thing he had to living itself.

Sephiroth hardly thought about their missions together. Just completed them and finished them well. He soon lost count of their number, and realized with a sickening realization that he was being treated now as a Turk. Dirty work, stupid jobs. But he was the best at them, and not even the great Tseng could hold a candle to that. 

Personally, he enjoyed the quiet moments in between each mission. Better yet, he had at least someone to enjoy these days with, who understood that Sephiroth was *not* a mere SOLDIER to be used until obselete, or dropped like a bad habit. Formally an accomplished Lieutenant from the Wutai Confrontation (a tentative title for the awful battle that lasted for a decade), his closest companion was another soldier named Zack.

Over the course of a few days sometime during the middle of the war, they had grown very close. Zack was glad to have someone listen to him; Sephiroth was glad for Zack's cheerful, non-judgemental and friendly temperament.

In some deranged, silent and possessive way, Sephiroth's rare affection for Zack gave Zack the impression that Sephiroth loved him. Zack loved him, too. Perhaps their feelings for each other were strained, for there was no way they could fully express it without the danger of angry sentiments from all sides.

Zack was the first to point out, one day, their new recruit. A young brat, not even infused with Mako, dressed in his ill-fitting uniform made for a private of SOLDIER. The boy stood nearly a whole head shorter than Sephiroth, almost the same height as Zack, and the boy's attitude toward everyone seemed reserved, often malicious, when he wasn't brooding in a corner or tending to his duties.

Charged with the new guy, Zack showed him the ropes of Sephiroth's little posse. They're group was considerably small, doing odd-jobs like fixing malfunctional reactors, putting down small but irritatingly significant resistence against Shinra, and dealing with naturalist factions who despised what Shinra did to the Planet. But since no such dangerous jobs were around, reactor-fixing was all that was left to be done. 

Next month, Sephiroth had to go to Nibelheim and see to a monster problem in the mountain village, and see to the local reactor and neutralize its malfunction.

Dreams vanished long before he could understand them. The ravaged man twisted in his confinements in the dark, foundered on the edge of awakeness, and discovered sleep again.

"Cloud."

Purposefully calm and stoic, he pushed the door open and stepped into the upstair's bedroom of Nibelheim's one and only available inn. It was their second day, the morning of their leaving to go up to the reactor atop Mt. Nibel.

It was a chilly, heartless morning, the air laden with fog. The clouds were straining to release their burden as it hovered above the mountain village.

The young man lay sprawled upon the bed farthest from the door, his face hidden beneath the flower-scented pillow. His arms were spread-eagled, his bare hands simply hanging off the sides of the bed, and clenched so tightly that Sephiroth could tell - even from this distance - how white his knuckles were. 

"Cloud," he said again, louder this time.

The hands relaxed slightly, the young man sighed.

Sephiroth stepped around the foot of the bed as he reached it, his arm hovering over the pillow before his hand snatched it away from his face. The pale boy's eyes squeezed shut instantly against the lamplight. 

"Come on, Seph... I was sleeping."

"Any deeper, you would have made your hands bleed. Did you speak to your family?" Sephiroth rested the pillow against his hip, no longer weighed down by the weight of his long, cape-like overcoat. 

Cloud blinked slightly, his impossibly spikey blonde hair drooping slightly from gravity. No doubt, he wonders why I would care about such a thing. But it's obvious it bothers him, and it's my duty to know about if it's going to affect his performance in battle.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Consider this as a command, Private Strife. You *will* tell me, or it's punishment for you." 

"Ooh. Which one this time?" Cloud blushed as he said this, for although Sephiroth wasn't in any sense of the word 'kinky', Cloud sometimes enjoyed taking after Zack and twisted his words around to mean something else. It often back-fired with Cloud, but Cloud was hoping at least this time Sephiroth would loosen up.

For a second, Sephiroth's mouth twitched into a smirk. "Come on. Never mind this 'command' ridiculousness. I only wish to know, out of the benefit of you. Something troubles you."

Cloud sat up, reaching over to take the pillow and drop it back to its proper place. He stroked its surface for a few seconds, before he turned his back away and let his legs hang from the edge of the bed. "We have to move out soon."

"We have time. Talk."

"But we--"

"_Cloud._"

The young man sighed, his shoulders stiffening at the tone. Then they sagged at once. Sephiroth watched him, and frowned when his shoulders started to shake slightly. He slowly walked over, regretting at once asking at all. 

You only think it's for the benefit of the party when we ascend the mountain, he thought. But it's more, isn't it? You see past his furious exterior, his rage. You see a soul within, a terrfied and fragile thing.

The urge to protect Cloud from pain was hard to resist. In the past, he simply brushed it off as a teenager's rebelliousness and wondered at how he could have ever even made SOLDIER at all. Zack understood him better than anyone else, though. And was it not Zack who told him, rather sadly, of Cloud's infatuation with Sephiroth himself?

Since then, he felt obligated to give Cloud what he wanted, which was maybe a tenative friendship which blew into full-blown infatuation with each other. Infatuation though it may have been, Sephiroth felt intensely drawn to Cloud's sensitivity.

He stood in beside him awkwardly, reaching to rest his hand against his shoulder. Beneath his touch, Cloud quivered with his withheld sobs. His arm tingled slightly and his fingers tightened of their own volition, when the young man surged to his feet, throwing his arms around him in one smooth, desperate motion. His grip was tight, his face buried in his chest as his heated breath assaulted his skin with his muffled moans of misery.

Sephiroth marveled at his tight grasp, and fervently his own arms moved about him. A mixture of emotions twisted inside of him, fatherly protection battling against--against--

He stood beside the vacant bed where Cloud had sat, supporting him now as he caressed his shoulder, kissing his mouth again and again to Cloud's bafflement, silencing his resistence and encouraging instead to simply let him touch him. For god's sake, the boy needed it. And so, he admitted, did he.

Gradually he felt the tension drain from the boy's body, felt response and lust replace fear and uncertainty. A breath of relief escaped them both, and Cloud's hands slid up behind his neck to the back of his head, pulling him down to his mouth where his tongue touched his. He tasted like sweetness... flowers, while Sephiroth tasted to Cloud like smoke and fire...

"Sephiroth...?"

Cloud shot out from his grasp like a hawk, standing against the edge of the end table, staring at the floor and keeping his mouth shut tight. Sephiroth looked at Zack, who stood in the doorway. The black-haired man's was slightly agape. Not shock. Not horror. But pain. That he had been betrayed, as though everything he had believed about people was utterly wrong. Zack's carefully crafted disguise of the Nice Guy slowly crumbled, and his expression twisted into one of--

"Zack--"

"No. Don't explain. I'm gone." And just as quickly he vanished from the room, leaving Sephiroth heavy with guilt.. at the utter and complete unfairness of it all.....


	3. Anti Ansem

Chapter 2 - Anti-Ansem

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The sky cleared even more. Strangely enough, the rain had ceased to exist. The land seemed brighter, but no less gray. What had been blurry before was now seen clearly. From the slope of the mountain, Ansem discerned the craggy, pock-marked faces of others around him, stretching tall into the sky. The hills clawed at the sky as though to escape. Sleepy animals awakened, and for the first time Ansem thought perhaps this place wasn't as 'dead' as it seemed.

Moisture seeped into the soil, quenching the dry earth beneath. Impassable, swelling rapids had dwindled to crossable rivers. Creaky, broken bridges spanned their breadth once in awhile as they squeezed in between the gargantuan gneiss rocks.

Having nothing to follow but the Seeker relic as his guide, he chose his direction and trekked, stopping once in awhile to eat. As it was, Ansem was tireless and wasn't known to be easily exhausted after having gotten some real, true rest. His rest with Sydney had given him the respite he needed to regain enough strength to reach the other lost, dwindling spirit.

In this strange place, the sky was the color of blue. Its hue reminded him vaguely of that island, from whence the Keyblade master Sora had come to rescue his friends. But the island *had* been beautiful... as beautiful as its people. In particular one boy. A bold, out-going child named Riku, whose desire to discover other worlds had attracted the Darkness and poisoned his heart.

He had proven to be a charming child to use, while it lasted, to speak through him, move through him, and utilize his marvelous sword skills. But Sora had won out in the end....

Ansem wondered as he climbed if Sora and Riku and the final Princess of Heart, Kairi, had ever returned to their world to live in peace. 

The thought made his stomach turn and his chest ache. He gritted his teeth and sprang to another rock, landing awkwardly as he slid down the opposite side of it, hitting a flat plane and staggering. He caught himself on another boulder, leaning against it for a moment as he caught his breath. 

"I definitely need to stop doing that, get my head out of my arse, and bloody concentrate," he grumbled softly. He checked Seeker once more, and to his astonishment the spirit wasn't very far from here. But it was telling him something else, too. It was in the middle of the mountain he was climbing, and he had circled half-way around it. He had seen no such cave or entrance. 

He looked around, turning instead to examine the boulder that had saved him from tumbling downhill. It was flat, smoothed down from time. Ordinarily, all of the stones and boulders he had encountered were jagged and darker. This was not.

But there was nothing in the way of a secret passageway. He frowned at it, knowing this *had* to be it. He tried everything, exploring every odd-shaped crack or knob, and found absolutely nothing.

At last, Ansem growled, turning and pressing, digging his toes into the stone. He shoved against the stone with all of his might. It shuddered suddenly and the motion made him stagger as it gave back a foot. It slid to the side with an unholy, ancient grating noise. Dust and dirt fell away from the cracks, made him cough, and clouded up the dark corridor beyond.

"Well," he said to himself with mock cheerfulness. "What a surprise! If all else fails... Push." He swept his hand through the air, brushing dust out of the way. "Nobody's been in here for an age, it seems..."

He stepped inside nervously, reaching into his pack. A torch was in his possession, luckily, though it was a chore to keep it from getting wet in the rain. He lit it, and resumed, treading down into the darkness.

It smelled of dampness within. Beyond, he heard the echo of running water through the caves. The corridor widened into a room with a single door in the corner, cracked open to a spiralling stairway. He paused in the center of the room, turning around and around, peering into the shadows to see a heavy chest, scrolls, a number of miscellaneous items. Perhaps some sort of study, he thought. And poorly looked after.

But the door was what drew him. It seemed to have been left open in a hurry. This impression wandered through to him, suddenly and without warning. That something used this door regularly, but what he could not tell.

He walked to the door, sliding it open with the toe of his boot before he descended the spiral stairway. There were more torches lining the walls toward the bottom, their eerie sick light casting the damp walls a sickly green sheen. 

At the bottom, he heard the noise of water growing louder as he pressed his hand against another door. For a moment, it resisted before it slipped open, the noise a shrieking banshee in the darkness.

Stepping into the room, he squinted slightly, flinching when the door behind him shut itself loudly. He saw on the other side was a mirror, gleaming in the light of the torch he now raised to penetrate the shadows. It was then, at this moment, that something abrubtly caught his attention. A flash of metal. A lot of metal, in the corner of the room. He stepped toward it slowly, and his heart lunged into his throat at what he saw.

Suspended on the wall, by an assortment of chains and thick, heavily barbed wire, was a man. This man's clothing was stripped off from the waist up, and the pants that remained were torn with jagged, blood-stained slashes from the wires that entwined around his limbs. His body was covered in fresh, slick crimson blood, each wire positions over his arms and veins and one, final wire wrapped particularly around his throat. Scars, scars such that no man could survive covered the entirity of his body wherever the wires' bite had reached.

By will alone the prisoner's chest moved with each strained, forced breath of air. His eyes were closed and reddened from torture, or straining to see in the darkness for other than Ansem's torch there had been no light in here before he came. His faded silver-white hair clung to his blood-sticky face, fell across his shoulders and into the wires.

He lunged forward, resisting the urge to drop the torch and he set it into a torch sconce on the wall beside him.

"Good God!" he cried hoarsely in the darkness, reaching to touch him but fearing to. He slept. It was good that the prisoner slept. He didn't want to wake him, and make him struggle and injure himself even more. He looked around, quietly, hissing fervently about a switch - anything! - to release the ragged body that hung on the wall.

Finally he found what seemed to be an odd-shaped crystal, set in platinum, jutting out from the wall. It had a thin layer of dust covering it, like the dust covered everything. He reached up to touch it, and at once the crystal shrank back into the wall, and a metallic clanking echoed beyond the stone walls. At once, every wire and chain slackened or fell free, and the man's body fell with it, crashing against the floor where he was at once awake.

Ansem fell upon him, and immediately found himself fighting a thrashing, rampaging demon of madness, screaming as he was as his fingers tried to claw and scratch and tear at him. Indeed! Ansem found this very man striving to sink his teeth into his leg did he not have the strength to knock him back.

"Stop this at ONCE!!" he roared, half in terror and half in rage. He struggled to his feet, nursing a scratch on his cheek before his attention fell to the prisoner. His eyes softened while he watched him, and he sat before him.

"No more fight left in you? That's good. I'm not going to hurt you... now, hold still..." Ansem stilled his shaking hands as much as he could, reaching to take the corner of his now-gray jacket and dab the blood from his body. This was going to take more than simple healing. When the sound of water suddenly broke into his attention, he turned and saw the source of the wound. It was a fresh spring, falling through a crack in the ceiling and into a neat pool carved into the flagstones.

He left him there for a moment with his jacket, moving toward the spring, and testing the water himself before bringing a handful of it toward the survivor. He splashed it on his face, wiping the grime from his face with a piece of cloth he'd fished from his bag used to store some of the food he'd taken with him. He slowed down, going to the pool again to rince out the cloth and come back once more.

What emerged from beneath the dirt and gore was a handsome man, pale of face, a strong jaw and an expressive face. The eyes gleamed like gems from his face, and watched his every move like a drugged serpent, experiencing the desire to strike but having not the strength nor means to. 

"There you are," Ansem whispered, hands working shakily as he cleansed his face, squeezing the water out on his shoulder. When the water touched the long reddened scar around his throat the man hissed, reaching to stop his hands. "Easy, stranger! It must be cleansed, or it will not heal."

The stranger's mouth formed the word 'why' silently, his throat bobbing slightly as he swallowed. Inch by inch, the grime slowly was scrubbed from his neck and shoulders, and Ansem answered softly, "Because you cannot stay here and suffer. Because it is not right to be tortured like this, and because *I* would not want to see it happen to you any longer."

He felt pressure on his arm, where the man grasped his sleeve. "Why?" came the question again.

"I am alone," Ansem told him after a moment of cold hesitation. He reached under his shoulders, hefting him up slightly and pulled him across the flagstone toward the natural spring. There, he rested him against his pack long enough to feed him water with his hands. "And there is another man living in the village in the valley who needs us both, because he's been alone for a long time. He needs us. Shh, don't ask me any more questions now. You just sit and drink, friend."

After he'd drank enough water, Ansem sat and suspended his head above the water and rinsed his hair, squeezing it out, rinsing it again. He marveled when the dirt had been washed away, how soft and shiny it was, how so like his, though perhaps his own was tinged more gray than white or silver. He sighed, running his fingers through the damp locks before he continued washing him. 

Sleep claimed his new companion, thus ending further opportunities for conversation for a few hours. Ansem shivered slightly, and left him there by the pool, wrapped in his coat as he went to light the other torches around the room and cast a bit more light in the room. 

He was tired, and ate what was left of the stale, tasteless bread from his sack until he curled up beside the stranger to keep him warm, his body shivering from more than just cold. The night was setting on. Heat did not penetrate this deep into the mountain, and it would soon grow chillier.

Simple bliss. 

Instead of nightmares, he found darkness and warmth in his sleep. Sleep that rested him and embraced him, caressed his feverish mind. He struggled to remember the voice of kindness, the sight of the stranger's clean, dark face burned into his vision while he slept.

Had he *ever* known peace before this? At all? Though his body still ached, he was warm. Though he was hungry, he was no longer thirsty. He suffered - but he was no longer alone.

His mind fumbled crazily to make sense out of all of this. Probing thoughts lingered on the edges of dreams, but they were reluctant to visit. That was just as well; he'd rather be fully asleep, without dreams, than have the dreams. He wanted nothing to bother him, and give him peace to ponder over these strange events.

Yes.

He would learn more when he was awake. Oh, yes, most definately.

Ansem slowly uncurled himself from beside his sleeping charge. The torches still blazed dutifully from their wall sconces... however, something was different in the room. He staggered to his feet, cracking a twinge of pain out of his neck and back. Flagstone could be most uncomfortable, he noted bitterly. He approached the door he'd come in from before, and stopped short.

The mirror on this side of the door was different. He didn't know exactly *how*, and as he approached, he gasped and jumped back again. 

There was no reflection. Of *anything* in this room. Simply bare walls, an empty dead-end corridor beyond the mirror. "Beyond the looking glass," he whispered hoarsely, eyeing the glass suspiciously. Good God, this was unnerving. He moved from one side to the other, desperately searching for the reflection that wasn't there.

Was there... some kind of trick?

He opened the door, and saw to his relief the familiar twining stairway going up. He glanced toward the silver-haired man and smiled grimly. If he wasn't strong enough to make it up these stairs, what a task it will be to drag him! As he turned away from the door, it shut once more behind him. And once again he found himself beside the angel - _yes,_ he thought. _He's an angel, that's exactly what he is _- brushing his fingers through his drying hair. He still slept, for which he was glad. He looked so peaceful... and just how long had it been since he'd *ever* gotten a good amount of sleep?

Creak.

The sound fingered through his thoughts until he realized he'd heard it. He turned his head around sharply, stiffening slightly as he sought the source of the noise. The door hadn't moved or opened. But he stared at it, his gaze very much bound to that unnerving visage of the empty corridor.

What started as an inky blot of blackness suddenly began to crawl across the glass, almost as part of this mysterious 'non-reflection'. It *writhed*, and soon the blackness became many formless beings, crawling toward the edges of the mirror and congregating as their density and number simply multiplied. 

Ansem could only stare in horror.

What *were* these things?

Surprises seemed to be in abundance in this awful place.......

Suddenly the blackness lunged from the mirror itself, spilling onto the floor, gliding up through the air the darkness pooled itself into a grotesque shape. He remembered the twisted, jagged forms of the Heartless that he had once controlled so easily. They were nothing beside this thing, which writhed and rippled on ungainly ooze-like limbs. It crawled toward them slowly, what seemed to be a head bent low to the ground, "sniffing" around for them.

The sleeping man behind him stirred, groaned, before it was cut off short by an unusually low, dark growl of such deep, fathomless hatred that Ansem took a step back from *both* of them. The second it took him to do so then he saw the flash of white hair, furious green eyes and a strangled roar of rage so inhuman he thought it may have come from the blob than the man. But what insued was a battle he would later recall and still not understand, for it happened so quickly and ended so abrubtly he had no time to think.

Sephiroth awoke to the familiar stomach-twisting sensation that those soul-sucking abominations induced upon their victims. And when he awoke, found himself unbound and full of energy, he turned his rage loose immediately on the creature which he could now see. And the hatred that swelled at the sight of it murdered his reason and left it behind as he launched himself from beneath the grayed jacket and collided with the thing of darkness head-on. Oblivious to the life-stealing cold that began to numb his body once more, he snarled as he tore at the flesh.

Like savage wolves they tumbled around the floor together, his fists pummeling against unyielding, wet mushy flesh, and felt no bones give underneath his punches. When that did not work, panic surged up through him, and his voice worked as he screamed, his voice grating on the walls of his prison.

"_FIRAGA!!!_"

Immediately he pulled free and rolled back against the wall, the back of his head cracking against it audibly and at once his world was black and white, spinning as flames of hellish power burst upon the abomination. In his nearly blacked-out state his lips pulled back in a sneer of satisfaction as the thing's dying howl raised above the roar of fire.

When it was through, and the dizziness cleared, he swept his hand tiredly through the smoke and focused on the man whose face had echoed through his calm, quiet dreams. He saw him almost draw back slightly in fear and Sephiroth tensed, readying another spell just in case. 

But the other stranger didn't move, and simply gazed with golden-red eyes like fire, so bright compared to the rest of his drab, soaked appareance. He crouched, clutching at the edge of the white jacket, while Sephiroth looked on.

"Who are _you_?" Sephiroth hissed through clenched teeth. When the words passed from his lips, a throbbing fire exploded through his head, and everywhere as he moved to stand. He rose to his feet precariously standing on his legs like a newborn calf, his long thighs straining against the flimsy material of his torn pants.

He looked like the devil of himself, rather like the dead risen. His ragged appearance portrayed much struggle but at the same time determined life. His eyes burned like fire from beyond a curtain of damp silver hair, spattered with caked blood here and there.

"I-I..." Ansem fumbled for words, having no such conception of what he just saw. He saw magic, yes, powerful magic. But how could this man possibly horde such power all to himself? How could he, and yet be such a prisoner here? He realized that the "prisoner" was still waiting for his answer.

"Ansem," he replied at last, quickly.

"What?" The man's eyes narrowed dangerously. He must not have caught it.

"Ansem. I saved you. I came down here and saved you, I mean, I followed you here using this relic, you see, and I came down here and saved you from--" Ansem trailed off and coughed from the smoke, trembling slightly. "I, uh, saved you."

The prisoner walked forward, limping faintly, oblivious to the small trickle of blood that was coming from his right thigh. Ansem's eyes traveled over him, flickering quickly, admiring and simultaneously fearing the strong frame, the wretched appearance, the menacing, almost insane glare.

"Saved me... just how in the world did you manage to even find me, ...Ansem?" His lips quirked into that maddening smirk again and Ansem stood up slowly, holding the jacket as though it were a ward against evil.

Darkness permeated from within this man. Yes, deep intense darkness. And evil, strong evil, so much so that Darkness was *his* servant. Not the other way around. Which was odd. Darkness *always* won, always. 

"I told you," he said more quietly, measuring his words and trying to sound as calm. "I used the Seeker relic to search out a spirit in this world, and when I found you here, I felt rather inclined to save your ass from certain doom or an eternity of agony." His voice hardened at the end, and for a minute he thought he sounded particularly intimidating. "Now... who in God's name are you?"

Sephiroth blinked, certainly surprised at the sudden recovery. What a bold man, he marveled. To come and rescue me like that...brazen and foolish. (And... handsome... wherever did he come from?) "Sephiroth," he answered, eyebrow twitching upward a bit. "So... now that I'm up and about... can you show me the door?" 

"There's only one. And you're not going alone, my friend Sephiroth, I assure you that."

"Is that so?" Sephiroth took another long step toward him, so that a mere few inches stood between them. He reached out suddenly with one slightly bloodied hand and seized his throat slightly, yanking him nearly from his feet entirely to bring him closer. What he saw as he sneered down into that face gave him cause to be speechless, for with fear came a gleam of nameless emotion in his eyes as well.

Nameless, but not unfamiliar, he thought. Confusion, want. Simple desire. How appropriate... I'm seducing him without really trying to.

He let him go slowly, if only to give the man some room, and he backed away. "Don't touch me," Sephiroth warned softly. "I'll go with you then... I'm not helpless now... don't infuriate me, Ansem, or may whatever Gods show you more mercy than I..."


	4. Come Closer Stranger

Chapter 3 - Come Closer, Stranger 

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Ansem pulled himself together, refraining from insisting that Sephiroth wear his jacket again in case it rained more. He pulled at the edge of the mirror door and found the stairway again, where they both ascended back up into the dusty, abandoned study. Sephiroth looked around for a minute, then continued on as though nothing in the room interested him in the slightest.

What fascinated Ansem the most about him was the swiftness of his recovery, the long-limbed ease of his stride as he moved gracefully across the floor as though he honestly had a place to go. Walking behind, he quietly enjoyed the luxury of watching the subtle shift of his legs as he took each step.

(Stop that, you idiot!)

And then he was drenched with rain as they came to the surface, pelted at once with the familiar driving rain. But it was particularly hard now, huge pelleting droplets that soaked him to the very bone at once. Yet before he even thought of himself, he moved to Sephiroth's side. 

"You stubborn, idiot man... I told you to take my jacket," Ansem snarled against his ear, tearing off his trenchcoat and throwing it over his shoulder. "Come on!" And he yanked him toward the trail that he spotted a few seconds before, and together they headed down the mountainside toward. Ansem blindly followed the Seeker relic's detailed map, sliding sometimes down the hill, having to wait at the bottom of the muddy path until Sephiroth made his slow way down afterward.

Sephiroth seemed tolerant of his crude handling. In fact, he was silent until they reached the edge of the mountains, where he simply stopped and plopped down onto the water-choked grass that had tried to grow while the sun had been out. Ansem crouched down next to him, adjusting the jacket over his shoulders. 

"Almost there," he whispered to him softly. "There's someone in that town named Sydney. He'll take us in... I promised him I would return with you. It's not far."

"I don't think I've met him before..I don't..I don't remember," Sephiroth mumbled slightly, his hair hanging over his face. Ansem lifted him, and brought him forward the rest of the long way, across the fields and through the hole in the fence.

Ansem was exhausted once more by the time he stood again on the doorstep of Sydney's house. He waited as he stood there in the rain, supporting Sephiroth's weight until the door opened at last. But instead of Sydney, he saw a tall, broad-shouldered man with black hair, long hair, streaked bloodred, in a simple silk Japanese shirt and leggings.

"I-Is..S-Sydney home?" Ansem demanded through chattering teeth.

"Yes... he's inside, but he's sleeping. I'm an old friend of his... come in."

Ansem walked inside, and this new man did not make any move to help him guide Sephiroth into the living room and down onto the floor, where a soft mattress lay spread out before them. 

Sephiroth layed down instantly, and remained for a few seconds until he moved again. He rolled, languished in the blankets, pulling them around him. Ansem watched him for a few seconds, too numb from cold to really notice how much he needed to get warm. A hard shove pushed him onto the mattress also, and Sydney was there with his odd-colored companion, replacing his drenched clothes with something warmer.

Ansem could not argue. He was beneath the blankets now, tucked securely beside Sephiroth who seemed to have fallen asleep once again. Ansem himself could not close his eyes. He stayed awake, even after Sydney curled in the couch beside Roj (the man with the black with red-tipped hair and slightly pointed ears, and almond-shaped eyes).

He couldn't let himself sleep, even when he was so warm. Sephiroth so close... He remembered his anger, that dangerous madness.... and the Darkness over which he held sway, so cunningly, effortlessly.

Ansem admired him, and in so many more ways than one. He watched him sleep when Sydney and Roj retired to their own rooms, his eyes traveling longingly over his features, his fingers aching to touch his hair. 

God, how can he be so beautiful? And how can I be so pathetic? Ansem thought privately, tucking his arm beneath his pillow. He pushed forward slightly, gasping silently as his leg rested against his thigh. But Sephiroth was completely unconscious, oblivious. 

"Good," he whispered softly, slowly lifting his hand. "You need your rest..." He touched the soft smooth locks, and pressed closer, breathing in faintly the stranger's scent. He smelled like rain, and underlying that the subtle cologne of man.

"I can't really sleep," Ansem continued out loud to himself. He rolled over underneath the blankets, away from him, and spoke to the fire. "I've got so much on my mind... thinking about how to get out of here... where to go... if I want to stay here and live with Sydney and his odd lover. I definately don't want to leave you. I've still got Seeker on me, so maybe you and I could continue our journey and look for others. That is, if it'll EVER stop raining..."

He stared into the flames, listening beyond the crack and pop of wood for the rain. Strangely, it never came. The droning hiss of water on saturated earth never fell on his ears. He tensed for one moment as though doubting his own ears but he didn't hear it. In spite of the temptation to get up and see for himself whether the rain had ceased, he silently rejoiced in the silence and closed his eyes.

"You know, it's...funny. I'm still talking... but you're fast asleep. I know some part of you might be still awake. The part that cares. You were like me back in that torture chamber in the mountain. When I woke up and found myself surrounded by nothing, bathed in nothing, *being* nothing I felt a consuming hatred so deep it almost destroyed me," he went on. "Somehow, I found the purpose to move on. There had to be *something*. I had to *do* something. To make something out of nothing, by the way, is a rare gift."

Seconds passed as he moistened his lips and breathed deeply. He felt no stirring from the man other than the sound of his breathing. Ansem slid one thin hand down toward his own thigh and rested it there, his fingertips brushing along the tender flesh of the inside. He felt the response, a subtle pressure, a slow crawling warmth in his loins and his hand twitched away like a spider back into the open. 

"Sydney wanted me..." he said suddenly, in a voice too soft so that he could barely hear. "His loneliness is infectious. I wanted to share his existence with him...but, not alone. There had to be more. I don't like to be alone. Perhaps I need people to be around me... a lot of people who I can relate to..."

He trembled slightly before he stilled his nerves and shook his head, brushing his hair out of his face. "I'm going to be quiet now... I don't want to wake you up..." 

And he was quiet.

* * * * *

Sephiroth pulled free of the blankets slowly, his limbs stiff but slowly recovering. His body ached like he'd swum free through all Nine Gates back to the land of the living. He trembled slightly as he sat, one leg tucked underneath him. 

He pressed his hand against his forehead lightly, his hair spilling loose down across his naked shoulders. He brushed it back, turning slightly to catch the sight of the stranger, the struggling hero who had saved him from the mouth of insanity. His eyes softened, the strange serenity with which Ansem's face held was strangely softening to his disgust. Not quite disgust but... fascination.

He thought he had dreamed the same dream last night that he had for the eternities in Hell he had spent. But he couldn't remember. Events blurred together in time and space, becoming unimportant flashes of torment that he pushed from his mind completely. This wasn't quite death nor was it living. He watched this creature's face because if he had looked anywhere else, madness would have sunk its talons into his mind and tore the remainder of his sanity away.

In such a face, he found peace where there was little to be found. He frowned slightly before he looked away and peered toward the stairs.

"I'm sorry, little angel," he murmured to the sleeping man. "But I have to see about this... Sydney..."

He stood up, stealing a sheet to wrap around his narrow waist. He wore nothing else besides that was worth covering anyway. He slunk to the foot of the stairs before he continued upward, glancing down again past the railing into the room where Ansem slept.

The bedroom was not hard to find. The door was cracked open and as he neared it, he saw the foot of the bed, the crumpled sheets and the pale, nude boy-creature named Sydney, his leg sprawled across the tanned individual's stomach. Hair tousled, eyes closed, the faint traces of a smile on his bruised lips.

Sephiroth backed away after a few seconds, before turning to retreat back down the stairs. He shook his head as he sat down again, tucking the sheet around his legs. His eyes were drawn to Ansem, and met a cold, burning metallic orange gaze. 

"He awakes," Ansem said quietly, his deep voice resonating strangely from his reclined position. "How do you feel...?"

"Stiff, sore and cold..." Sephiroth tucked a piece of his hair behind his ear and sat back slightly. He arched a slender silver-white brow. "Why were we sleeping on the floor together?"

"That's how we ended up... I should have warned you before," the other man replied as he looked toward the ceiling with barely disguised amusement. "Sydney likes to take the clothes off of any man he meets."

"So I have observed. Why am I naked?"

"Your clothes no longer served their purpose. I think Sydney burned them." Ansem pushed himself up, and stood up to climb out of his sheets. He seemed nervous about something before he turned toward him, standing in simple, clean breeches. "Did you hear me say anything...at all, last night?"

Sephiroth met his gaze again and suddenly lost himself in it. He almost forgot what he'd asked. He shook his head. "..No, I didn't." 

But had he?

Dreams were funny... you think you hear someone...but it's not certain if it was real or part of his twisted fantasy. He shook his head again, pulled his eyes away.

"Ah...I talk in my sleep..that's all. But you were so fast asleep, I doubt you heard anything." Ansem turned away and hunched his shoulders. Sephiroth looked on, watching him move purposefully across the room to a closed door. He opened it to reveal a closet, and started sorting through pants and shirts. He tossed a few pairs of pants down. "Try these on. They might just fit you..not sure..."

Sephiroth reached over to take up a pair of the pants. One of them were simple khakis and another pair were snug, faded jeans. He looked at Ansem, who had his back to him, still flipping through an assortment of shirts, pants, and jackets. 

"What I would *love* to know," the man said from the closet, "is how he can get clothes like these in a world like this?"

Sephiroth returned his eyes, running his hands lightly over the fabric. A very good question, he thought to himself. Then he stood up, clutching the sheet around himself. He cut into Ansem's mumbling with a short, "Where is the bathroom?"

"Do you want to take a shower?"

"That would be preferable, yes." Sephiroth frowned, irritated. 

"Yes, wouldn't it? Considering you smell like mud and you're twice as dirty," Ansem replied light-heartedly. He emerged with three pairs of shirts and boots, and he shoved them into Sephiroth's arms. He pointed toward a door. "It's in here. Go wash yourself."

Bewildered and annoyed, Sephiroth balanced the clothes, held the sheet around his waist, and moved into the bathroom without much problems. He shut the door behind him once he was inside. He fiddled with the shower, cursed at the confounded workings of the pipes and finally deciphered the letters etched into the faucet handles (which looked like hieroglyphs to him).

He spent twenty minutes under the constant heat. He washed his hair, squeezing the dirt-colored water from it. He closed his eyes, tilting his head back as a moan of delight escaped past his lips. 

"Enjoying yourself," said a quiet voice behind him, "'little angel'?" 

He shot around, grabbing onto the wall-hanging that held the shampoo and conditioner. He glared into the pair of eyes through the rippling glass and snarled, "What gives you the right to come in here!?" Then he realized what he'd just said, and paled slightly. "That meant nothing," he snapped, spitting water from his mouth.

"I go wherever I please," Ansem replied smoothly. The eyes burned through the glass, kept him from looking away until he backed off toward the door. "Just wanted to make sure you didn't pass out, that's all." He sounded slightly hurt, but hardly threatened.

Sephiroth emerged after Ansem had left and dressed in clothes provided for him. His skin tingled and the air was saturated, what with all the steam trapped in the room. He stepped out of the bathroom and into the hall, rubbing his hair vigorously between his hands with a towel. He saw Ansem, dressed in fresh clothing, crouching over the fireplace and restoking it with as much logs as possible.

He flinched slightly when he saw him. Then he stood up, snatched a brush from the coffee table and started toward him. The willful look on his face was both intimidating and amusing as he twirled the object between his fingers.

"I hope you used a lot of conditioner," Ansem sang in his smoothest, deep voice as Sephiroth folded the towel across his arm. 

"I had expected as much. And you don't have to brush my hair." Sephiroth stepped toward the ktichen, but stopped when Ansem caught his arm and yanked him toward the couch. 

"I *am*," he insisted and pushed Sephiroth onto the floor. Ansem sat on the couch, and took Sephiroth's hair across his lap.

"I could kill you for doing this, you know," Sephiroth rumbled slightly, though his voice was not angry. It was pleasure that echoed through it.

Ansem leaned close and smirked, whispering into his ear. "Your world has strange customs, Sephiroth."

Ansem worked from the bottom toward the top, layer by layer, smoothing out the knots and snarls that came with having such long, unruly but undoubtedly the most beautiful hair the magic researcher had ever seen.

Sephiroth reached back, sliding his fingers around his wrist to stop him. "Thank you. I should keep you around, simply to brush my hair. My personal hair dresser," he jested softly, tilting his head back to look at him. He actually smiled, for the first time since before he could remember. It was odd...

"Are you going to kiss me or not?" Sephiroth asked him, for they had sat thus, staring at each other as though neither had seen another person in their lives before.

"N-no, I mean... ahh... I'd like to do that, but for the simple fact that perhaps we should not. Let us become friends first," he stammered, sliding back from the couch. He pulled his wrist free and then stood up, shaking the brush out and tugging a few pieces of silver hair from it. He marveled at the glossy strands, his eyes fixated for a few seconds. "You could sew these into something."

"What?" 

"Your hair. It's beautiful. You could use them like thread, twine them together perhaps, and make them into something else." Ansem twirled the strands about the handle of the brush securely, and watched as the firelight dances on the metallic luster of each shimmering strand.

Sephiroth watched him. Then stood up, and said at length, "You're a strange creature, whoever you are..."


	5. The Price for Pleasure

Chapter 4 - The Price for Pleasure

-------------------------------------------------------

Ansem smiled tightly. "This is my brush, by the way," he went on with mock seriousness. "Nobody touches it but me. And your hair, of course."

The ex-SOLDIER made his way around the room, taking in things that he did not have the liberty or the energy to when he'd arrived. Everything seemed so strange to him. Some things echoed of a familiarity he couldn't put his finger on. The subtle gleam of the lights on the freshly waxed floor reminded him of a place and life that he might have lived before but only in his dark, blurry dreams.

It unnerved him. The unsettling darkness that had pervaded throughout his thoughts all day since he'd awakened now made his mind cower in shadow. His vision blurred at the edges and he drove the Darkness back almost immediately. It clouded his mind and obscured his reason, and it was a weakness he could not afford to give into.

Ansem watched this subtle transformation with a subdued calm, his eyes flashing slightly as he saw at once the curving figures of shadow slink around Sephiroth's body. He moved forward the moment he started to see him slump slightly.

Whether or not Sephiroth was aware, he did not know. Sephiroth sank back, suddenly without the will or strength to bother fighting it anymore. Instead of feeling the sting of falling on the floor he felt the gentle pressure of Ansem's arms about his chest. Somehow it returned his strength. His head cleared, and he turned his cheek slightly against his shoulder.

"What are you?" 

"You are poisoned with Darkness," Ansem told him as he embraced him. "And you're slowly losing yourself to it. I need you to relax. Back over to the couch. You should eat, and you will not argue with me."

Sephiroth did not argue. He leaned against Ansem while they shuffled back to the couch. Sephiroth collapsed into its softness, and marveled at how soft it was, and never realized how good such cloth could feel against skin. He closed his eyes to enjoy it, but Ansem presses his hand against his wrist. He sat up, growling in his throat, but his touch sent again that cool, clarifying sensation through his body.

And moaned quietly, couch forgotten as Ansem's arms again slipped easily around him and pressed him close. He didn't mind, honestly... it felt quite good... to be held in someone's arms... strange... certainly something he'd never experienced before...

Warm, soft lips pressed gently against his forehead, and whispered against his feverish skin words that droned quietly into his brain. _Sleep for now... show me your dreams, weary one... let the Darkness speak for you of the pain that words cannot describe. I'm here for you, Sephiroth... I am listening._

* * * * *

Quiet whispers permeated in the darkness like the skittering of the rats in the alleyway. Junon was not a good place to be, especially during after-war time. It was also not a good place to be if your name was Cloud Strife, and you were in line to be interviewed for the thousandth time by a young, spirited reporter of some news company that Cloud had never even heard of.

It figured that when he had a moment to spare, he couldn't spend it with someone he cared about without being hounded by a dozen of Sephiroth's biggest fans.

Although now, they were unbothered by such petty interruptions. The young soldier lay stretched underneath the warm weight of Sephiroth's arm, clothed in the dark violet of the SOLDIER's outfit. Sephiroth was turned on his side facing him, his eyes open and glowing in the dimness of the Junon barracks, private quarters for the lieutenant only. 

"I wanted to be the man everyone thought I couldn't be. Everyone seemed to always see the things I did wrong, and pretty soon I couldn't see anything good either... it was always, 'Strife, you idiot, look what you've done!'. I could never do anything right..."

"Cloud," Sephiroth reassured quietly as he watched the younger man shift uncomfortably with his thoughts. "You will grow strong someday. You're strong now." 

He said nothing. Cloud rarely spoke much after telling one of his many deep, dark secrets. He stared at the ceiling, his fingers gently tangled in Sephiroth's fine hair. 

"I have to tell you something," he said suddenly, pulling his hand free and turning to press his face close. "No, something different. It's...important."

Sephiroth breathed in slowly as the gentle touch of Cloud's lashes against his cheek. The boy's hands tightened on his arms as he held them, and his words came forcefully as though he couldn't bear to speak them.

"I can't...I can't see you..anymore..." His throat seized up slightly. Emotion choked his words, but kept them understandable. "Ever...ever since Zack, I...I don't think we should..."

"What?" Sephiroth pulled back slightly. Cloud looked as though he was just run through with a jagged, rusty pipe. "What did Zack do? What did he say?"

"H-he told me you a-and he were together. He said th-that...well--"

"You think we're together? You and I?" 

"W-Well, I--" Cloud swallowed as he slid out of bed, and stared at him across the slightly crinkled sheets. "Look, I n-never asked to fall in love with anyone before!! I just wanted to have a friend, someone to talk to!! And...And obviously, since you don't consider this as 'together' then maybe I'm just wasting my breath. You really *don't* care, do you, Sephiroth? All you care about is.. is goddamn work!! And....ZACK!!"

The explosion came so quickly that Sephiroth had no time to shield himself. It had *stung*, this... strange emergence of emotion. Cloud vanished through the door before Sephiroth could protest... to explain. But such had been the ugliness of truth. He stared at the empty bed, wrinkled sheets, and stretched his hand out to run his palm gently, musingly over the imprint Cloud's body had left.

He trembled slightly before he sank to his knees beside the bed, his arms folded across the sheets, his face buried in the bunched up sheets as he pulled them toward his body. "You stupid fool," he whispered unto himself. "You stupid, ridiculous bastard..."

* * * * *

Calm breathing filled his ears. He opened his eyes again and trembled as the dream pounded into his brain, a dream he understood completely. He remembered feeling the sheets slide from his fingers and the strange wetness that dripped onto his arms. The taste of blood on his tongue when his teeth sank to bite it, again, to keep from screaming. 

"Wake up," the breathing said. "Come out of there..." 

Tears blurred his vision. The arms coiled around his waist, hands resting lightly against his thighs. He felt a peculiar breeze against his shoulder that was warm. He reemmbered where he was, and closed his eyes again. Strangely, he didn't care. Sephiroth didn't care about anything anymore. His mind buzzed with memories, tumbling into one another until another voice breathed again.

"Empty your mind, Sephiroth," Ansem said quietly. "Remember them, but think not on the past so much. I'm right here. Don't worry about the boy anymore. He's gone."

Sephiroth almost detected a note of jealousy in his voice, understanding and sadness resonating in his deep baritone. He spoke up, finding his throat tight with emotion he didn't remember feeling during his unconsciousness. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I don't understand," he said softly. "I don't understand why he was so angry with me... I cared about him, too."

Confused, angry, and sick to his stomach he pulled free and slid over to the other side of the couch, pressing his hand over his eyes. His innards shook with the rest of him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ansem slowly straightening and leaning forward.

"I care," he interjected quietly, reaching to tuck a strand of intruding silver hair behind Sephiroth's ear. His fingertips lingered lightly against his cheek, and twitched when Sephiroth caught his hand in his. He turned his palm up, and Ansem watched in confusion as he kissed it, his face twisted lightly in pain. "Sephiroth?" 

"Yes, Ansem," he said quietly, still grasping his hand delicately. "I know."

"But it's--" Ansem wet his lips, and silenced himself. _I am the fool_, he thought amusingly. _Why had I not prepared myself when I knew this was coming? _"--it's not right..."

Yes, it is. He slid toward him, and felt Sephiroth's tongue lightly circle his throat as he leaned into him and pressed his face into his shoulder. The man's arms tightened around his back and he tilted his face up, tasting a shy mouth caress his. His trembling lips suckled gently at his lower lip and something like fire burned in Ansem's gut. A fire that encouraged his hands to slide up along his companion's thighs and tighten on the edge of his shirt.

Only when Sephiroth took his hands and pulled them free was the fire cooled to a slow, stubborn candle-flame. His eyes were calm and reasonable, and it took a moment for Ansem to remember where they were.

"Wait," he told him quietly. His eyes softened, a trace of tears brimming near the bottom. "Wait awhile." 

Ansem wanted to damn him to the farthest pits of hell. But he saw the tears, felt the pain. There was another time and place for this. For Sephiroth, the pain of loss and his memories were still to near. 

"Don't worry about me leaving. I'm not. If I leave... then you're coming with me. I don't intend to stay here for eternity. I am not going to take this bleak existence lying down," Ansem told him, his breathing even again. His thoughts cleared, and he smiled faintly, his mouth numb with the kiss they shouldn't have shared.

* * * * *

Light-hearted, Ansem packed away the final article that he would need on this hopefully short and fruitful journey. He tucked Seeker into the bangle that Sephiroth made for him, and shouldered his backpack with one final look toward the sad, warm little house in the middle of the City of the Unliving.

Sephiroth carried equally as much as Ansem, for they cherished dry clothing as much as any normal person did. And they set out. Sydney did not care, nor did he seem to pay them any mind as they left the poor broken creature with his strange lover Roj. 

"So, what if we never get out of this place? Can we escape into another time?"

"If there is another time for us," Sephiroth answered quietly. "I still can't quite grasp the meaning of it all, but as long as we're together, I suppose nothing could harm us." He stared into the dismal gray horizon, and suddenly his face brightened like a star in supernova, shedding light where there was none. He smiled and continued, "Perhaps there lies our hope." And he raised his arm, pointing toward a faint light in the distance. It seemed very close, but ...far away.

Ansem squinted slightly, before he was pulled to the side by Sephiroth, and paralyzed by his sudden kiss. His mouth moved subtly as he spoke again, in a ragged whisper. "Never, _never_ look directly at the light, or we'll lose it instantly. We *will* get there, Ansem. Trust in it, and we will escape. I just know it."

* * * * *

Ansem's feet were leaden, his boots weighed down by so much mud that clung to them. His jacket he had gotten rid of simply because it was becoming a nuisance, a dim whisper of irritation as the rain made his flesh crawl every time the material moved against his skin. Sephiroth moved on ahead, and he watched his back as they continued, hauling their backpacks which were soaked through, soaking everything in them and making them thrice as heavy. But they were the only other clothes they had, and though they were wet they were clean.

Time was like a memory once more. The Magi remembered spells as they walked across the plains, through a forest, and still Sephiroth insisted there was a light. This pulsing flicker of hope was what kept Ansem from complaining at all. After all, he could have been alone... could have been dying slowly, in agony, like Sephiroth had been...

The skies were so dark, it was impossible to tell whether or not it was day or night, so Ansem had no inkling of how much time had passed. The rain had started hours ago, he thought. Or maybe it was days. Who knew anymore?

Ansem dared to use one of his less frequent spells, and summoned up a small floating ball of cold fire, which flickered here and there above their shoulders and ahead, revealing some of what lay before them. Through the cracks of trees, they discerned the floating hopeless ghosts of creatures who could never hope to live at all. They seemed to follow them occasionally before they ceased to remember them and wander again and vanish through the eternal sheets of rain that crashed around them.

Sephiroth let them stop, and rest for a couple of minutes. They stood, shoulder-to-shoulder like miserable posts of flesh. Ansem reached up to hold onto his arm and turned toward him somewhat, leaning up against him as he pressed his lips to his soaked, clammy skin. 

"I can't do this anymore," he hissed quietly.

Sephiroth answered after a breath, "Yes, you can, Ansem." His arm pressed against his back, holding him against him, and for one terrible moment Sephiroth swayed unsteadily as Ansem suddenly started coughing ceaselessly. He regained his footing however, by some means of awful luck and lifted him in one motion into his arms and proceeded to carry him.

The ball of fire died slowly, Ansem heaving occasionally with his terrible coughs. But light had not ceased to radiate around them. It enveloped them safely, and warmth replaced cold. 

The rain stopped.

Everything around them was very, very silent. The trees had strayed away into a large, oddly circular clearing, perfectly empty safe but for a ring of tall, worn stones that stood in a triangle. 

Yet although there was light, the shadows, the sick cold that crept over Sephiroth that was different than the cold of the rain. It was that soul-sapping essence that stole over his spirit. So familiar. Like small, jagged claws were slowly closing around his heart.

It was not long before he could see them.

Droves of those dark beings, short, moving awkwardly and almost comically on their short legs. Their hollow yellow eyes glittered hungrily in the darkness, rushing toward them both like a pack of starving, cannibalistic wolves.

Sephiroth made it to the triangle before he sank down to his knees, laying Ansem onto the dry ground before he followed as well, shivering violently with chill. He was so tired... agonizing stabs of pain throbbed through his skull, probably from the cold, keeping him from passing out.

"You won't take him," he growled through his chattering teeth, rising to his feet and drawing the sword he had collected. He didn't remember picking it up at all. It came into his hands as though by will alone, and it hummed with his presence, hungry for these devils as they were hungry for Sephiroth.

His strength only slightly renewed, he kept a tight circle around Ansem's motionless body, slashing, each precise motion determined to hack and destroy as many as the little vicious bastards as possible. He felt their claws pulling at his coat, spun, slashed, felt them again behind him and turned, broadsiding another demon with the flat of his sword. Desperation began to squeeze his heart, made it difficult to think--

But a voice slided like a warm breeze through his thoughts, easing tight knots of migraine from his temples. The demons vanished in a heartbeat, without a trace, falling away into black, glittering particles forever.

So you have found your way here. You are both very brave, but this is not yet the end of your journeys. You will find yourselves at the mercy of other living souls like yourself. But you are not yet free from the Void.


	6. You Can't Forbid Love

Chapter 5 - You Can't Forbid Love

-------------------------------------

Kiriel made her slow way around the paper littered hallways of Meshal College, her fingers closed around the leather-woven hilt of the sword. As she walked, numb with shock from her injuries, she only just then recalled how the weapon had come into her possession.

She had woken in the night from a sound from the neighboring south dormitory, and slipped out into the dimly lit corridors to see what it was. The uncharacteristic chill that filled the College was the first thing she felt out of ordinary. (Meshal College, located in Southern Tarbina, was reknowned for its fiercely humid tropical climate on the tip of Old World continent. Nothing below the temperature of the water ever touched the constantly green leaves, the heat saturated streets with their fruits and venders.) 

As she moved toward the dormitory entrance she froze at the sound of footsteps behind her. She'd spun around at once to face the intruder, her fingers twitching to cast magic and stared at the face that confronted her.

It was a man, his eyes glowing the fiercest blue-green. Kiriel knew at once this man was not natural, but he was a man. He carried another man in his arms, who appeared unconscious. The man who carried him wore a long black coat that hung nearly completely to the floor, ripped in countless places. He was tall, his face wane with dark circles under his eyes. His silver hair was held back in a tangled pony tail with a few soaking dreadlocks of bangs falling across his face.

He bore the weight of the man and their soaking bags boldly, but by the look of him he appeared to be no more willing to put up a fight than he was to start running. Their gazes held for more than a second before she heard something hissing from behind, beyond her shoulder.

She dodged barely in time, crying out a deflection spell as her silk pants slid against the marble, sliding until she could touch the stranger's boots. She stole a breath before chaos swept like hellfire just above her head. She smelled lightning, fire, smoke and ash. The screaming of the other girls brought her to attention. They were safe for now. These strangers needed her help, outlandish or not. The Code of Meshal said clearly that anyone in need of help deserved it, be they for good or for ill.

The man lowered himself carefully to his knees, setting the unresponsive one behind him. Then he slid the two water-logged bags from his shoulders alongside his companion, before he drew a sword from a scabbard at his side. It was almost as tall as she was, perhaps taller, but he drew it cleanly and stood again, leaving bags and man behind. 

Kiriel raised her eyes to see what had attacked her, and choked back a sob of despair. A thing of blackness, in the rough shape of a man, stood with cold eyes of fire. Its arms crackled with magic, and Kiriel percieved magic from the silver-haired stranger as well. His body was strong, stood solidly and calmly. No longer unbalanced by the weight of his burdens, he now convinced Kiriel that in battle, he was a formidable fighter.

"This is no fight of yours," the man said.

Kiriel knew he was talking to her. She didn't want to back down, but she backed off slightly, and lowered her voice, already magic tingling over her tongue, the spells hot in her mind. "Do you think I care about that...? If this continues much longer, I won't have to get up for my classes tomorrow morning!"

"If you don't get out of the way," he returned sharply, "you won't be getting up at all. Get your ass back into the dormitories. This creature is after *me*, and will stop at nothing to get me. And him." His eyes twisted down to give her a stare, then flickered toward the unconscious man. Such the stare was that Kiriel whimpered slightly.

"You're a fool," she hissed as she closed her fists, swallowing her magic and slipping back through the doors of her own dormitory. She ignored the shrieking dorm-girls and ran past through another set of doors, skidding on her bare feet. Her destination was the Magi's office to fetch the only teacher she liked and trusted - Madam Analyn.

She stumbled into her office, stopping once only to get used to the heady smell of spices, magic, and incense.

"Madam Analyn?" she called uncertainly, moving behind the empty desk with its odd jars, twigs and stones and parchments. "Madam Analyn, where *are* you?"

She didn't find her teacher. Instead she found the sword, hidden in a partially opened trunk hidden in the corner of the room. She saw the long emerald green scabbard, its pommel jutting out crookedly from the corner. 

Without thinking, she pulled it out, felt its weight change to accomodate her strength, and she ran back toward the hallways where she heard a terrible, thunderous explosion. She gasped, the sword humming in her grasp as it shrieked to be used to defend her. Almost clearly she heards its bell-like voice speaking to her. (You are in danger! Use your magic! Protect yourself!)

She was dimly aware of the College alarms going off, and bit her cheek to keep from screaming at the sudden chill that fought to freeze her limbs into mock rigor-mortis. And then--

The shadow creature faced her. Sticky red blood trickled from a wounded right rib, but he only seemed exhausted rather than critically injured. Kiriel brandished the sword, trying to remember the sword lessons she had struggled with Swordmaster Fayed. Too late, the shadow creature lunged, toothless maw gaping into a tunnel of eternal black...

Fear paralyzed her. Spells vanished from her will, escaping her memory and leaving her helpless. The resulting explosion as she lifted the sword to block the beast knocked her several feet back, where she lost consciousness for several seconds.

When she awoke, the demon, the strange men, even the bags were gone.

Kiriel felt her brow again, and her blood had gone sticky by now. Her head was pounding, and the cold had left her almost completely frozen now. But she forced her quivering legs to move and walked down the ruined corridors, hearing the distant cries of the terrified.

A teacher ran down the halls, black robes swirling, rushed down the hallway toward her. She pretended not to see him and continued walking, her fingers wound ever tightly against the sword that she could not bring herself to release.

It was the teacher of Black magic, Magi Kessil, who stopped and reached to clutch her arm and turn her about. He had black hair, dark emerald green eyes blazing from a handsome, though harsh face.

"What are you doing? Why do you have that sword?!" Magi Kessil demanded, shaking her again as her knees started to buckle. Yet her hand still did not release the weapon, which seemed to hum very slightly in her grasp.

"I...I-I was trying to--" she wheezed, when she saw Madam Analyn hurrying in her light violet robes toward the pair.

The white magi turned to give a cold stare to Kessil, who stared back but released the girl's arm. "She's not to be tampered with, Kessil. I am afraid the sword has taken to her. There is no turning back now. Its spirit is intertwining with hers, and whatever that black creature was, it has fled the college grounds and will not be seen again."

Kiriel's world spun. The words jumbled together, and they spoke over her head as though she did not exist. At the moment, she didn't feel she really existed at all. The only voice she could hear was the one softly chanting in her thoughts, a cold, calculating chant. It was irresistible, drawing her into slumber where she did not want to go.

Her mouth struggled to form the words; she couldn't use her voice, for it was just as frozen as the rest of her. Why in the hell weren't they listening to her?

Then the blackness came.

* * * * *

Outside, the sun shone as brightly as ever. Classes continued, although some subjects had to be taken outside in the college gardens. Guard watches were divided up among the Black adept, as well as some of the White who could afford to use some of their powers to heal those who had been injured. Damage had been minimum, but the wreckage of the classrooms prevented any normal sort of scheduling.

A rough sketch had been written up, and magically projected in every toiletry and every corner to direct students toward their relocated classrooms. It was confusing, but few complaints were made for conditions could have been much worse.

Kiriel spent the rest of her day in the infirmery, nursing the bump on her head and the awful curiousity she felt whenever her head stopped pounding long enough to let her think. 

Where had that man gone...? Did he die? Did he escape, and if so did he or didn't he destroy that monster?

"Madam Sirril!" she called plaintively from her bed, raising her hand instinctively as though she were in a classroom. She tried to sound as needy and innocent as possible to gain as much attention, but not too weak to sound delirious. 

The nurse, clad in the same violet robes with the addition of a small gleaming gem that clasped her cloak together, came round to her and bent to check her wound. 

"They said there was a black monster on the grounds," Kiriel began but was interrupted when a boy suddenly cried out in pain and yanked the attention of the nurse back away.

The young woman sighed and leaned back against her pillows. Irritated, she pulled a face and closed her eyes, her jaw firm. If she had to, she would uncover this mystery herself.

Suddenly, her greenish eyes shot open and flashed toward her hand. She stared at it, as though she'd never seen it before. She saw her fingers curling around the blackened hilt as though her hand acted of its own accord. She shivered slightly as she watched, and then pulled the sword up to her chest. The blade was safe in its scabbard now, and she could have sworn she heard it humming softly inside like a contented feline.

Maybe this sword would help her...whatever it was. If someone ever provided the answers she needed. The thought of losing it, to her alarm, seemed the most catastrophic thing to have ever crossed her mind. She gasped and clutched it tight with both hands now, and stared at the door, impending doom fading as Madam Analyn entered the infirmiry.

She seemed to sigh softly, pity in her eyes as she gazed at Kiriel. "How are you feeling, young one?" she asked softly, sitting on a stool provided by the bunk. "That was a very irresponsible thing you did, but courageous."

"Madam Analyn, what happened to that monster?" 

"It's gone, Kiriel. Forget about it. There are other Magi to worry about it now." 

Kiriel sighed, rubbing her forehead, and taking a breath, asked, "Please tell me if you saw two men... one of them was unconscious, and the other was carrying him... did you see them? They have silver-white hair--"

"I'm afraid not... if anyone saw anybody, I doubt it. Everyone was hiding in the classrooms or the dormitories while the chaos was going on. And YOU, my dear, were out there foolishly trying to fight it."

"What...what *was* it...?"

"I don't know, Kiriel... it was a creature of darkness... I've never encountered its like before. And that sword--" Madam Analyn motioned toward. "--was what protected you for becoming the walking dead. I suggest you hold onto it... well, I suppose that wouldn't make sense. You can't really let go of it anyway. It has chosen you."

Chosen...? 

Kiriel looked away, feeling herself growing more and more frustrated. No answers... no nothing.

She *would* have to do this by herself... with... or without the damned sword.

* * * * *

Ansem woke to find himself by a warm, crackling fire. And, all at once, his senses were on fire with awareness. 

He sat up instantly, hyperventilating for several long seconds, smelling the scent of burning wood, of crisp, clean river water and fish, of green leaves. Fresh air... He tilted his head back toward the sky, which was tinged the most beautiful orange-pink he had ever seen, bespeckled with glittering, bright and alien stars.

He breathed a slow sigh, trying to calm down, when he felt a hand rest heavily on his shoulder. "It's beautiful, isn't it?"

Ansem turned, at first unrecognizing of the man who sat beside him on the bedroll, cross-legged and calm. Yet the sharp sweep of his jaw, the set of his jade green eyes, glowing brightly from a handsome face. Such a face, framed by straight silver bangs, struck a deep chord of familiarity inside of him.

"Sephiroth," Ansem breathed hoarsely, like a prayer. And his lips at once remembered a distant memory of a kiss. He withdrew slightly, suddenly uncomfortable, drawing the blanket tight around his shoulders. 

Sephiroth dropped his hand down again, frowning as he looked away. He gazed into the vast forest, a wall of green and brown and shadow that surrounded them. "I was worried you would never wake up. We are free of the rain now, Ansem. Imagine my relief when I arrived at that circle of standing stones... someone spoke to me in my mind...it said-- Hm. I have forgotten...." He smiled ruefully, brushed a piece of hair out of his face and looked at Ansem again.

Ansem looked back, blinking away the sleep from his eyes. He felt a thrill as Sephiroth reached out, gently touching his face, brushing his thumb delicately under his eyes, helping rid him of the sleep from his eyes. The deep, concentrating gaze never leave Ansem's face.

"Do you remember?" Sephiroth questioned softly, concern and despair in his voice. His hand remained against his cheek, captured his jaw firmly in his grasp to turn his face toward his.

Ansem was numb with shock... remember what? He wasn't sure anymore... But that touch certainly felt good... warm and welcome from the throbbing memory of cold...

Calmly, the other man scooted forward, resting his hand against his shoulder slightly as he pulled himself forward. Ansem started to protest when he merely pushed the blanket aside, and pressed a hand against his chest - Ansem nearly barked with pain.

"It's alright," Sephiroth said quickly. "You were injured... unfortunately, I woke up to find us trapped inside some sort of school. I had to escape... narrowly. A monster must have followed us. He injured you somehow..." He pressed his lips together slightly as he brushed his fingers, feather-light, over the tender layer of flesh that had begun to cover the burnt skin. 

Ansem still breathed deeply, but it calmed him, this light feather touch. His eyes fell to his lap, and he brought his hands up to take Sephiroth's. His memory of past events came trickling back, threatening floodwaters to overtake him... and moved forward quickly, wrapping his arms around Sephiroth.

"I don't know... no more rain..." He sobbed, talking incoherently as Sephiroth stroked his naked lower back. The closeness was dizzying, but Sephiroth soon found himself fighting hot tears himself. He certainly did not blame Ansem for his odd behavior... it was difficult, to have dealt with something so long and then have it suddenly gone. To not worry about it anymore...

Ansem embraced him tightly, pressing his lips against his jawline. He kissed his skin fervently, again and again... he wanted to taste him, felt so blessedly free and awake now that he thought he would never sleep again. "Sephiroth," he moaned softly, twisting against the hand that stroked his back. "Oh my god..." 

His jade-eyed lover started to tremble slightly, reaching to gently take hold of his jaw and pull him down, staring him straight into his eye. "Don't... you've barely eaten... you have to eat." He rested his free hand against his hip, and pushed him back. Then he reached toward the fire, and plucked a piece of something that looked like meat from a wooden bowl. He did not ask him where he got it, but Ansem did finally take it and eat. 

He had eaten six pieces of meat in ten minutes. Sephiroth left him alone, having scooted back onto his own bedroll, staring off into the distance. 

"Why did you deny me?" Ansem asked, glaring at him. "No one denies me, Sephiroth. No one."

"I didn't," Sephiroth answered. "I post-poned it... I found it more important that you eat first. You are but a waif since we've arrived in this world."

"Hmph..." But Ansem hardly minded. He continued to stare at him, felt the chill coolness of the night on his bare arms, and once again pulled the blanket around his shoulders. He rubbed the tender skin on his chest, before he crawled free of his bedroll and inched forward. "Will you postpone again, if I try?" 

Sephiroth swerved his eyes toward him. Amusement, perhaps? "Go ahead and see."

But somehow Ansem didn't quite try. He pressed tight, closed his mouth over his shoulder for a few seconds, shuddering awkwardly before he pulled free, and simply sat close to him for the rest of the night.


	7. The Heartless

The Heartless

"What kind of torment is that?" Ansem snarled, walking along slightly behind Sephiroth in the forest. They moved near the edge of the road but out of sight of any potential passers-by. The sky moved overhead slowly, time measured by the movement of the one sun that swung from one end of the panorama to the other. The road to their left, and a bubbling stream to their right, they used it as a compase by which to measure their progress.

"What torment?"

"You just looked at me last night. Then I got bored with it and left you alone."

"Then it worked. I stared at you until you left me alone." Sephiroth was characterically cheerless today. He moved gracefully, bending slightly to duck underneath a low-hanging branch. Ansem followed suite, feeling more irritated than ever.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why won't you look at me? Or kiss me, or... touch me?"

Sephiroth stopped. So quickly that Ansem nearly crashed into his back but instead, he found himself caught inevitably in the man's arms. He gazed up, a palpable fear crawling up his spine. Perhaps he had asked too many questions... maybe he'd angered him, but he saw none of it in his eyes.

Sephiroth spoke as his hands gently massaged his upper arms where he had caught him. "I've just been thinking, Ansem. That's all. Thinking of our existence... the voice told me we weren't free, and as far as I know, we should stay away from the road for there may be people after us now. And until we find out how to survive, and maybe to get out, we'll never be free."

"But that doesn't mean we can't--"

The silver-haired man pressed a finger to his lips. He smiled sadly and shook his head. "Ansem, I... I have to think about this... I'm still confused... everything seems to be demanding my attention all at once, and I fear I'm going mad." His finger caressed his lip, and suddenly he leaned forward to brush his lips over Ansem's own, his tongue questioning at the corner of his mouth.

Ansem froze. Then melted. His arms passed around his waist, over his back... ah, bliss... he tasted good, Ansem realized, tentatively parting his lips, letting his tongue glide over his lip, into his mouth. A transient shudder rippled through Sephiroth's body and for a moment Ansem felt the burgeoning desire to steal him back further from the road and undress him in the shade, touch his body as he's longed to do for so long... 

He started to step back but felt Sephiroth's grasp on him tighten and hold him in place as he caressed his back, sliding his hand beneath the cloak that had proved to be the only thing covering his upper body next to the loose tunic Sephiroth had stolen to keep him warm.

"Sephiroth..." Ansem growled softly, drinking each quiet pant that came from his companion like a dehydrated man. "Please, we can. There's no one on the road... there's no one..." 

Resistence was becoming a vague idea that held no substance. Sephiroth pressed closer, light-headed. Desire coursed through him, and he wanted to take him, pull his cloak and tunic free and touch the sensitive flesh that was still recovering, inhale his breath and slip his own back into his lungs in the darkness of the woods as he made love to him... 

A snap from the brush nearby broke him free of such fantasies. Sephiroth spun in a 180 degree angle, sword steal ringing in the air as he drew the blade, almost unconsciously keeping Ansem safely behind him. Ansem kept tightly close, and Sephiroth could swear he heard him whispering spells quietly to himself, carefully keeping the inunciations away so as not to trigger one. The power that coursed through him snaked around him, a dull vibration and electric charge that made his desire no more lessened than the alarm did.

"Come out, intruder! Show yourself!" Sephiroth called, his feet set in the ground.

The leaves moved. A short figure, slim in green leggings and tunic and cloak that seemed to be made from the very leaves of the forest themselves. The hood of the cloak carefully hid the face of the tracker, and the hilt of a slim dark sword was visible from the hip.

"I mean you no harm. I met you in the school, remember?"

"I don't remember you...show your face, child, and I may yet spare you a gruesome death."

She brushed her hands back, pushing the hood away from her face, showing her clear leaf green eyes and dark hair. "You don't know my name. It's Kiriel... I was trying to help you before--"

"--you were attacked and fell unconscious. I fought the creature but briefly before I had to flee. Forgive me if I don't remember."

"You're a stranger here, aren't you? You bear local clothing yet I have never seen a sword such as that. Nor eyes and features such as yours. You do not have pointed ears, or sharp teeth. What are you?"

Sephiroth smiled, slowly lowering the blade. He hadn't a thing to fear from the girl as he sheathed the weapon. Ansem stepped away from behind him and answered for him, haughtily. "Not an easy question to answer. I suppose you would think us demons if we tried to answer. But I assure you, we are not."

Ansem closed his eyes, his heart thundering in his chest. His face felt flushed and he prayed the girl hadn't seen anything. He was sure she hadn't, but even so he was thrice as frustrated than he was a few moments before. He had been *safe*, damnit... safe in his arms....

"If not demons... then.... what was that black demon that attacked my school?"

Ansem flickered his head up. Black monster? Sephiroth had explained to him before what it looked like... its mannerisms. And to Ansem, it sounded peculiarly like--

"The Heartless," he said softly. 

Kiriel looked at him as he stepped out from behind Sephiroth and crossed his arms over his chest. "The Heartless. Beings without Hearts, who seek forever the energy of those who have them to devour their souls. They can never truly be destroyed once they have been released from their source."

"Ansem?" Sephiroth looked at him, arching his brow in curiousity. "You've never told me that before."

"Of course not," he said irritably. "I didn't think it necessary, since my defeat meant the trapping of the Heartless forever within Kingdom Hearts. Their ultimate source... *their* world."

"If it was locked, why are they here?" The swordsman gave a snort of derision. "What that entity said *was* true...."

"I don't know," Ansem answered softly. 

Kiriel stepped forward, seeming frustrated. "What are you talking about? The Heartless?"

"Those without hearts," he answered, and suddenly felt a weariness come over him. He rubbed his forehead and paced slightly toward a tree, leaning against it. "The being that spoke to you, Sephiroth... he said we weren't free?" 

"Yes." 

"There must be...must be something that we must do here..." Ansem kept his eyes closed for a few seconds longer, his awareness peaked so that he could hear Kiriel's heart pounding.

"I followed the beast's trail this far into the woods. It stops at the riverbank. I was hoping you two could help me find it so that maybe we could discover its secondary source," the girl said. "My magic can trace its presence, but it's too far away now. We should keep moving." She paused, and wet her lips before she spoke again. "Is that...alright? I never got your names..."

"Sephiroth," the man with forest green eyes responded. "And that is Ansem. We are strangers here... but....I suppose since our coming here heralded the arrival of this Heartless beast... we *should* help take it down."

Ansem flashed him an almost pleading expression, his hopes crushed as fiercely as if Sephiroth had told him to take a hike. But Sephiroth was not looking at him. He was staring keenly at Kiriel, his eyes flashing with a kind of determination he had only seen when they had struggled through the savage torrent of rain, a time that seemed eons ago.

Determination to succeed... to finish. To get through, escape. 

Ansem decided it was safer to keep his mouth shut. He nodded finally, his mouth set in a grim line, extinguishing his foolish desires make room to worry about more important things other than Sephiroth's warm hands, touching him, soft demanding mouth possessing his...

"I don't mind," Ansem mumbled, pressing a hand to his forehead. "Not at all."

* * * 

The road that led through the forest carried them inexorably toward what Kiriel explained was Elven pass. Crossing the river by bridge was a risky task, but there was not another human in sight and they vanished back into the trees. Kiriel found that wherever the monster was going, it was heading not toward Elven pass, but west again toward the mountains.

"Where does Elven Pass take us?" Sephiroth asked as they moved through the trails. Deer trails, she said they were, which eventually became mountain ram trails once they would be clear of trees.

"It would have taken us to Latch Gate. It's another town, it mines iron. You'd have found good weapons there. Not too much magic, though. If you want to survive in this realm, you need both magic and the sword."

Kiriel moved along, stealth as a deer herself, her cloak of leaf green fading in and out of view like magic. But her voice was as crisp and clear as the forest around them, the sunlight bright and welcome to their rain-weary souls. 

Ansem was silent. He, being so in tune with magic, found it becoming easier and easier to discover the source of power that was slowly reawakening his powers. He found himself stunned at the amount of life here, in such abundance... free, untamed and wild. This place was not shackled by society, or beaten back by human advancement. The land was the provider; to take it for granted was to plan your own demise.

He also understood that figuring out this... paradox, this traversing through realms, was far more important than spending private time with Sephiroth. Sephiroth, himself, seemed to be in deep thought about this. He walked, often his eyes staring at Kiriel without seeing her but only to follow, while his mind wandered elsewhere, weighing the possibilities, or perhaps trying not to lose sight of hope.

Kiriel stopped as soon as they began to pull free of the forest's gentle arms and push on into the mountains. She pointed out a spot for camping just beyond a tall mound of dirt and grass, sheltered from sight and storm.

"This'll do," she said, reaching into her backpack and rolling out a simple blanket that seemed far too large to fit into such a small bag. She smiled, seating herself upon it. "Magic. It's made from a rare material from Jorna. Incredidibly soft but firm, yet pliable for easy carrying. Come... you can use it if you wish. You have nothing to sleep on. We'll have to get you something. I need to scout ahead anyway."

Ansem looked up from where he stood, fixating his eyes on Sephiroth. But Kiriel's voice stole his attention. "Ansem? Will you come with me?"

The mage smiled softly before he followed her around the stones, up the hill.

"Kiriel," Ansem began, but he was interrupted as she spoke softly.

"You seem to know more about this monster than anyone else. So tell me... are you and Sephiroth really the catalyst of these events, or the answer to them?"

"I don't honestly know, Kiriel. But Sephiroth and I do not want harm to come to this place. I certainly don't. It, and its people, are far too beautiful and too precious for me to wish any destruction upon them."

"So you say...but how can I know for sure?" Kiriel stopped in her tracks and turned to stare at him, her eyes narrowed. Such intense green, crackling with what Ansem percieved was great magical potential... she was certainly no novice.

"We would have killed you." His reply shocked her and for a moment he thought she may have attacked. But his eyes were calm and he made no sudden movements. "We don't want to hurt anyone, Kiriel, unless they try to hurt us first. I merely know from experience that these Heartless are deadly and are not to be taken lightly. We should hurry if we expect to save lives."

Kiriel sighed... relaxed. He could see that she was making up her mind this time for sure. She smiled lightly and nodded, reaching to take hold of his arm and shake it lightly. "Forgive me for doubting you, stranger. It's just... well--"

A thundering crash shook the forest. Birds, screaming hellish fury, leapt from the trees and took flight at once, blotting out the sun. Ansem spun to the sound at once and backed away, feeling the familiar tickle of Heartless playing at the edges of his awareness. 

"It's that Heartless," he whispered. "It's coming for us... isn't that where Sephiroth is!?" 

He listened hard, his eyes widening as he focused on the tall mound of earth behind which Ansem knew Sephiroth was most likely preparing camp. The crash boomed again, and beyond the mound was a flurry of leaves, twigs to him but were branches in reality, tossed aside as though they *were* twigs. The noises shook his guts in his very body. 

"It sounds...huge!" Kiriel stepped back, her eyes hardening into gold emerald gems. 

"It could be. The Heartless can change many forms. It gains power as it kills.... I fear we may have waited too long." Ansem started to move forward but Kiriel caught hold of his arm.

"Sephiroth will lead him to us. That way, we can all try to destroy it."

Yes, Ansem thought to himself. And I stress 'try'.


	8. Heated Battle

Heated Battle

---------------------------

Sephiroth felt the crash only seconds before he saw the shadow monster bearing down on him, tossing the trees aside as though they were broomsticks. Masamune freed now in his hand he faced the monster, and saw those empty eyes fixate on him. Fixate on his very _soul_, the thing he held most dear, starved for its broken and ugly energy--

Again he remembered the Heartless's cold hands, their invisible hungry spirits crawling on his flesh, tearing and savage in their soul-starved frenzy. Like hyenas, they ravaged his soul and body countless times... bringing him back from death only by the promise of parasiting more of his energy to satiate their unholy hunger.

His hesitation was nearly fatal... as his mind froze with horror at the memories, he felt a whisper of cold brush past his cheek and focused again only to see the whirling, black and red lightning writhing around the monster's body. It was one of these that he had sensed touch his cheek and he bunched his muscles, dropping his cloak and pack to leap into the air and swipe his blade toward the face of this demon.

He misjudged the creature's speed. Reacting in an eyeblink, the creature's fist rocketed him aside into a tree several feet away. His back cracked against the trunk and he slid to the roots again, but the pain was only a dim memory as he stood again and leapt, rolling out of the way as yet another closed fist pounded onto the ground to smash him to bits.

He would not make that mistake again. Tossing his hair away from his face, he crouched to spring again, facing the demon as it tried to find him again in its sight. Before it could, he sprung again, focusing his strength. Like an angel of death he fell upon the monster. Thrice the sword rang, hacking through cold, black shadowflesh, seperating it cleanly as the whole array toppled to the ground in three black pieces.

Sephiroth stood up, sneering softly... This was far too easy. It had to be. Something was wrong.

He stepped away from the fallen creature, his eyes flickering from one piece to the other. There was no possible way that it would fall so quickly... so willingly. He knew from years of experience, and from the battle at Kiriel's college that nothing so collosal would stay down after such a quick kill.

Would it?

Indeed... he *had* chopped it into three, huge pieces. He saw the black, thick blood oozing from the wounds and blackening the earth - grimacing slightly as he did so, for the stuff seemed to 'move' like it were still alive.

Wait... _moving_....?

He straightened, gritting his teeth with growing hatred as he saw the blood was not stopping as it moved. It crawled like sludge, oozing back into the corpse of the demon, and he saw them begin to twitch.. twitch and writhe, moving and bulging as though their very remains were striving to recover strength.

Taking new forms. Twisting, gliding drowsily to dripping, black oozed feet until they began to solidify into jagged angles, spike-arms. Sephiroth saw them, three identical demons, raise their heads and blink toward him with renewed hunger - their bodies lumbered forward, growing steadily stronger as immense magic fueled their fierce advance.

"You devils," snarled Sephiroth as he started to retreat toward the campfire again. "You don't give up! You just goddamn don't give up!!" 

The camp area was large, giving him plenty of room to move around. Behind him, the camp area was blockaded by three sides by stone, trees or the mountainside. He would have to escape by scrambling past the boulder and toward the mountain. Maybe the demons would have trouble navigating the slippery loose rocks that collected at the foot of the collosal tower of earth.

Without thinking much after that, he turned and fled, leaping across the thin gap that was the split seperating the boulder and the mountain.

Kiriel was weaving a magic trap in the path of the three demons. Several feet behind her, hidden in the shadows, Ansem saw Sephiroth flickering madly in and out of sight between the trees. Beyond him, the blurry wavering monsters (three of them suddenly?) charging as their voices grated against his ears.

He had no weapon save but the cured sleek wooden spear the ground had provided him with. What good it would do against demons, he didn't know. But he knew magic aplenty that would do unsufferable damage to the demons.

The forest had become utterly silent. Creatures fled before the fury of the strange essence that had culminated itself from seemingly nowhere. His golden eyes flickered from his shadowed faces, giving him the look of a feral wild thing. "Come," he growled softly to the attackers. "Come and see what will befall your pitiful soulless corpses."

"NOW!!" Kiriel shrieked suddenly. She stood up, her empty hands thrust forward as a blaze of white hot fire shot across the earth, scorching everything it touched. At the last moment Sephiroth lurched to the side, his back crashing into the side of a horse sized stone out of the path of destruction. The three demons, unprepared for the assault, found themselves suddenly wreathed in holy fire. 

Screaming, they threw themselves down the gravel-covered slope to a rocky end. The sound of bones cracking and joints snapping apart made Ansem cringe, but as soon as he heard nothing else he darted from his cover toward Sephiroth.

"What happened?" he demanded. "Where did they come from?" 

"They came from the giant... I cut him in three and it seems to have been... unsuccessful." The man's eyes flared with energy. Ansem was captivated only for a moment, holding onto his dust-laden cloak with his white-knuckled hand. "This doesn't seem like it's going to end... there must be some...some way... do you think Kiriel's magic killed it?"

"Doubtful. Although it was a very powerful spell. It may be incapacitated for now. Which means we have very little time to get away." Sephiroth reached, and took his hand, detaching his fingers slowly from his sleeve. His smile was somewhat comforting...

"I'll go back and fetch our things," he went on, and slipped from his grasp and back the way he had come across the scorched earth. Kiriel appeared by his elbow, taking hold of his arm.

Her brow was creased, her forest green eyes darkened to an almost black hue. He could feel her magic pulsing through her, potent as a drug. Its effects snaked through him by her touch alone and he pulled his arm free. "He'll return in a few moments... it's obvious we can't camp here now." 

Kiriel had a certain way of stating the annoyingly obvious. Ansem rolled his eyes back slightly, and stepped away from her, dropping lightly onto the sandy earth. No sooner did he do so then Sephiroth returned, bearing their belongings, all neatly packed in their respective packs.

"Let's just make it up the mountain. I think I saw a cave up there as I was fighting the demon." 

"That would probably be an abandoned dragon cave."

Ansem's eyes swooped up slightly, glittering gold in the failing light. "Dragons?"

"We used to have so many around here. But in the last couple of years, they've been either dying out or going into hiding. I don't blame them. Technology is starting to creep over from the north and it's been difficult to mete out the 'bad' stuff."

"What kind of technology?" Sephiroth was keen to know, standing nearby us and handing Kiriel her own pack. 

She shouldered it, answering bluntly, "Guns." Adding to the list, she turned, and began to scramble up the mountainside with the agility of a fox. "Watches that tell time. Even things called telephones. They have to clear the land away to put up posts, so the magic can travel across the wires stretched between them. Could you imagine such a thing here?" 

Ansem would have said yes, he could. Such a thing was commonplace for the worlds among the stars. But he wouldn't frighten her with his awful tales, of mankind's dominion, of evils untold. Of doors and locks. Secrets never to be shared with anyone again.

Once again he wondered about worlds, blindly following her path to the cave, carved against a jagged ledge that jutted out like a crooked tooth from the partially charred face of the mountain. His hands clawed at the crumbling earth, the balls of his feet becoming sore from pushing from the same spot as each metric foot was gained. Behind him, Sephiroth moved silently, patiently waiting for him to move on.

Finally, after an age, he clawed his way using the aid of a stunted tree to the flat, well-worn surface of the aged stone. The 'tooth' overlooked a wide expanse of territory, and in the distance was her college town. It cut a pretty picture in the landscape, melding into the forests perfectly.

"Good lord," Sephiroth whispered behind him, rising and dusting his legs off. He gazed across the sweep of Ansem's shoulder into the distance, at the setting sun. The hues of blood and orange that painted the clouds. The thin, weak points of stars that grew in strength as the sun began to slide away from view.

Ansem felt his chest tighten slightly. He wanted to reach for him, take his hand and step back to enjoy it together. It was so difficult to do it, Kiriel was standing by them, watching this same sight, before she turned away and moved on to the cave.

She flashed a grin over at Sephiroth as she spoke. "Good eye, Seph!"

Good eye, Seph.

The moment was gone. Ansem's face twisted into a look of inner pain, but he quickly masked it with emptiness as he readjusted his pack and began to walk stiffly toward the edge of the cliff. There, he dropped his pack and shucked his cloak, running his hands through his dark, unkempt gray hair. He felt _his_ presence beside him a moment later. 

"What is it?" His voice swept over him, and the usual smile, awkward and yet more at ease than the first Ansem had seen, spread over his face to replace the sunshine that had finally vanished, leaving all in twilight. 

How can I voice this? Childish jealousy... or maybe I'm just... unbelievably weary An exhaustion further than just bone-deep. A demanding thing that seeks to pilfer my resolve, make me lose my 

He didn't say a word. Instead, he reached toward his hand and their fingers found one another, linking desperately together. Sephiroth slid his body closer until their thighs were pressed together, his arm crooked around Ansem's waist to rest against his right thigh, fingers still eternally clasped together. 

To hell with Kiriel, Ansem thought finally. I can live with it if she saw us like this... it shouldn't matter. In this world or any other. We are together. It's all we have. *He* is all *I* have. I won't let anyone take that away from us.

His mouth worked uneasily, leaning against the strong warm wall of Sephiroth's chest. The words tasted sweet but unfamiliar, perhaps better to speak them later when he felt confident. Now, strange as it was, in his arms he would always feel vulnerable and yet entirely safe from the harm that seemed to threaten them wherever they went.


	9. Falling

Falling

-----------------------------------

Magi Kessil marched from the clean white room where the meeting had just taken place. It was an intermission now, and a table of treats awaited his dry, parched throat. He was unable to articulate the emergency they were now in. Seventeen students already perished, and not a single explanation that rang of sanity.

He remembered Madam Sirril's exact words from the meeting just a minute ago. The way her voice quavered, how her eyes avoided anyone's gaze. 

Their eyes... so empty, as though living a dream they knew would never come true, like their hearts were no longer in it, in life.

Several seconds later, he clutched a glass of wine with his trembling hand, his dark hair shadowing his usually jet black eyes. But now they were the brightest of emerald green, sparkling intensely with tumulous emotion. He had seen one of the afflicted students himself. They sat still, oblivious to the rest of the universe. Tight-lipped, serene, their chests barely moving. Their spirits drained...

And Kiriel Zefflek was gone. Vanished with the sword, apparently undertaking her own crusade to avenge the students. The Code of Meshal did not say *anything* about meting out vengeance.

Kessil sighed, unable to enjoy the taste of the bitter wine, and turned in time to see the Delegate from the ministry of the North striding toward him. The taste of iron suddenly overpowered the taste of the rare delicate wine. It made him want to wretch.

The Northerner approached him, clad in dark, rare leather, which whispered for every step he took. Beside him strode a woman, who wore her hair short, her face stoic, and her attire similar but decorated with less of those fancy jingling bangles on her arms and pins on the lapel of her jacket. 

But it was the man who spoke to him. He recognized him from the local newspaper; the Northerners were here on account of the threat, of the inevitable 'affliction' that was slowly leaking into their territories. The man was general Arc Kage.

"Any news?" the general asked, his hand noticably itching at the holster of the alien weapon that hung there at his waist.

Kessil feigned annoyance. That weapon frightened him slightly, but he reassured himself by keeping faith in his power. "I'm not the one to ask... however, the only news I have is that we are working as hard as we can for a cure. But there seems to be no other cure than to return their life essence to them. And we simply don't *have* that. Without it, they will simply continue to exist until they either die or live their unlife eternally."

"It seems that magic fails here... we have no means of locating their... 'essence' either. We cannot revive them with our technology, nor can we find any way to defeat the onslaught of the monsters responsible for their demise." Arc Kage's grim facade, the sweep of his dark gray hair, gave him the look of an older man. Elderly, perhaps, although he was not yet even 50.

The man continued, diverting his gaze from Kessil to the wandering Magi that diffused with other Northerners. The woman spoke, her voice cold and empty with a hint of fear. "I have even heard that these creatures are starting to mimic the humans themselves... luring them to them, before stealing their life energy."

"We *must* do something. We have an agent on the field," Kessil reassured, searching the crowd for Analyn. She was speaking among others in her order, and when she glanced his way she caught his gaze and moved toward them, her violet robes sweeping behind her.

"And this agent," Arc went on after she had joined them. "Is he successful? Have you heard anything from him?"

"She, actually," the white magi corrected caustically. "And we haven't heard a word. But she is knowledgeable in the ways to contact us. A falcon will be sent... or a message by some other means."

Arc Kage narrowed his steel-colored eyes. The only thing that he disliked more than magic was a magi who thought he was being rude. When he was *not*. These "magi" were not to be trusted with such delicate matters. Once again he flicked his eyes toward Kessil and felt no inclination to continue *this* discussion here. 

Suddenly the intermission was over. Thanking the merciful One God, Arc turned away with his familiar aide de camp to follow his equals into the chamber. Northerners, with their guns and technological gadgets, filed through the doors on one side, while the elegantly robed magus on the other. 

Kessil glared at the back of his head for several seconds, and it only took a slender white hand on his arm to keep him from blasting him to oblivion.

"Control your anger, my friend," Analyn said with uncharacteristic softness. She pressed close to his side and spoke in low tones. "Remember, everyone is afraid. We cannot all be angry at each other and cause more death than there is already. We can't be fighting now."

Kessil put a lid, reluctantly, on his rage. He felt his power draining from him, the magic seeping from his bones. He sighed heavily and rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand, smiling grimly in apology at Analyn. He felt thankful for her... how many times she had saved his career - indeed, his life - with her calm and her reason.

He ran to escape the Darkness. Inescapable, impenetrable shadows everywhere, taking random forms every few awful seconds, their hungry eyes slithering over him, their whispers daggers to his mind until he almost screamed for silence. 

The empty void swirled around him, but instead of the time dragons, it was a medieval gauntlet of razor sharp claws that pulled and teared at his clothing, his flesh. His mind was shredded by their endless multitude of knives that stabbed, twisted in his ears from every direction.

Help.

His eyes closed, trying to block out their eyes at least. But not their voices. His own as he screamed was lost in the darkness, echoed by the same disquieting chant that was disturbinbly human.

Help me.

Sephiroth, where are _you?!_

(How do I get out of this nightmare? Please don't let me sleep forever...)

His thoughts became jumbled together. He opened his eyes again, and felt a sickening cold hand grasping his leg, causing him to stagger. He rolled onto his back, kicking furiously, and threw himself into a forward sitting position and pulled himself forward and to his feet again. The touch alone had done enough, searing cold agony beginning to numb the entire left side of his body. He couldn't run, and instead fumbled uncertainly in the shadows, sobbing helplessly. 

Please, let me let me wake up, please--

Helpmehelpmehelpme--

The voice was desperate, incessant, driving, drilling into his head until he thought he would plunge into madness just as he plunged into the swirling unfocused living hell that sought a firm hold on his ankles and drag him ever deeper into it.

"Ansem! Ansem!"

Sephiroth...? Ansem looked, but he saw nothing. The eyes engulfed him, his own vision swimming as they spun out of sight, back into it again at such an angle that it nauseated him. And then in the maelstrom of night he saw him, a sight that horrified him - the little demons clinging, their ravaging teeth and claws sinking into his naked body, until he was nearly wrapped in the shadowy tendrils that pulled him farther and farther away from him. He reached for him, ignoring the pain that was creeping up into his shoulder... he would die soon, surely, but he would die saving his Sephiroth.

Sephiroth reached back, his fingers muscles straining against the creatures' hellish clutches. 

The moment stretched for eternity.

Ansem's heart thudded painfully, his breath forced into his lungs and out again, leaving less and less room for more. 

Please...please...reach for me....help me...

It seemed endless, this reaching. Their fingers brushed. And in that moment, the coldness was complete. Sephiroth's eyes were not dying. They were not Sephiroth's. They were dead. That tangible, unsatiable desire filled his eyes to the brim, staining them yellow-red, and at once he fell forward, his hand clutching around Ansem's forearm like a snake-bite, like the bite of a mastiff, unrelenting and the cold was unbearable. And he was being pulled toward him, toward those hungry eyes and mouths that gaped open like grotesque baby birds for the grub.

"NO! NO!!" Ansem dug his heels in the nonexistent earth. They were everywhere, squeezing his eyes shut, feeling tears spilling like acid, burning his cheeks and gums and teeth, his tongue frozen to the roof of his mouth until that burned too. He was falling... falling into them...

Yesssss........

Sephiroth's ears burned and he sat up, his muscles sprung taut like a bowstring. That scream... where did it come from? He looked around him, the cave lit dimly by the strangely glowing azure, jade, amethyst gems. Their glow was easy on the eyes, subtle, peaceful... but things were not at all as peaceful as they seemed. Kiriel continued to sleep. He saw her form in the dim glow of the amethysts, moving slightly with her light, audible breathing.

Surely she heard the scream? he thought in confusion.

Ansem's bedroll was empty. Sephiroth slipped from his own, taking up his weapon and leaving his belongings behind, he slipped free of the cave and onto the jagged cliff. His eyes adjusted to the darkness quickly as they narrowed and searched the smooth stone point. The man was not here either. He shivered and moved forward to the edge, gazing down. 

All was peaceful here as well. The only troubling sight was the absence of Ansem. Anywhere. He shuddered violently and started to panic. If he wasn't here... or down there... where *was* he? 

He turned, walking back into the cave and stepping over Kiriel's sleeping form, venturing further into the cave where the gems were in greater abundance. The walls glistened with smaller, paler granules. The sheen was almost painful to look at it, so he kept his eyes gazing straight ahead of him, searching for Ansem's body if he had walked in his sleep and fallen.

The scream shredded up from further down the tunnel. The sound made his ears tickle, his bones shudder, and at once his heel kicked off the ground and he was flying down the tunnel, following the dull throbbing echoes. The gems were like the old car lights of Midgar, blinding, and drawing up more memories that he didn't have the time to want... but they came anyway, confusing him, and he thought wildly that Cloud must have gotten lost in the discolored, Mako-polluted caverns of Mt. Nibel. 

The walls were blinding, yes... but he had to focus. He saw the sheer ledge seconds before he leapt it, sailing a handful of feet above the ground before he skidded in an awkward kneeling position across the gem-littered floor. The pain made him cry out, and he gritted his teeth, doubled over as he grasped his now throbbing, bleeding knee. The silence was unbearable thereafter. The cave ended here. There was no other way to go.

Sephiroth stood up, limping around the cavern floor, searching where the gems guided him. Ansem was not far from here, he saw at once, seeing his crumpled form huddled into a slope near the middle of the floor. 

Painfully, he knelt next to him, turning him over, relief and apprehension twisting around each other in his chest. He pulled him over his good leg, patting his face. When he saw his eyes open, he sighed... but it choked in his throat. His eyes were dull..coppery, like old pennies. The gold was gone, the shine nonexistent. He gazed at him as though he didn't recognize his face. 

"Ansem, what happened?" Sephiroth demanded hoarsely, shaking him. "Talk to me... damn it, say *something*--!!" His hand froze above his heart, jerked away at the disturbing chill as a ghastly shadow began to squirm free from the middle of his chest. It was transparent, tendrils of pale, dim energy clinging to its body as it bounded free, a pulsating light from its chest. It stumbled away toward the wall, scrabbled at the stones and shrieking as Sephiroth released Ansem's body and lunged after it. 

"NO, you _bastard!!_ He's... MINE!!" His hands closed around its small, wriggling body, ignoring the agonizing burning that glided silkily up his arms. He held tightly, gritting his teeth and pulling the creature toward his body, as much as he loathed its presence - its very flesh induced a sickening nausea that made him almost gag. "N-No... you're...staying--"

It shrieked again, and turned, defying all preconceptions of its anatomy to sink its teeth into his hand. With an outraged scream, he shook it again, his fingers closing even tighter, reaching toward that pulsing light he could see from inside of its chest. "LET-IT-GO!!" 


	10. Darkness Reigns in No Child's Heart

Darkness Reigns in No Child's Heart

-------------------

Severe chill was beginning to steal the feeling from his arm entirely. But the little creature would not obey him, despite his screaming. They stayed crouched on the floor, screaming at each other, neither one giving up an inch. 

Something heavy and cloaked suddenly swooped down just behind his head. He ignored it, hugging the little devil to his chest tightly, feeling it started to rip through his clothing and reach into his soul..but he didn't care, so long as he could be with Ansem in some way, shape, or form, even if it meant something akin to death.

Stars exploded with the blast that followed, ringing so close to his ear that he was deafened for the next several seconds as well as blind. He fell against the grating gems, his arms raised to shield his head from the flying, glowing sparks of debris that fell around him.

The spots of bright light slowly dissipated, the blurred, unfocused blob of color next to him slowly defining itself with lines. The woman who crouched next to him was oddly familiar... his head was still ringing from the explosion, but his eyes focused on that light that floated in midair, as though uncertain of which direction to go. He knew what it was as he saw it, gleaming spiritual energy - that which fused with the Planet, the Lifestreams its veins, raging rapids of freed souls to be reborn.

Suddenly the light flickered and turned, streaking away like a sparkler held aloft by an invisible string. Sephiroth's gulp of air was choked in a cry of despair as it vanished around a bend in the tunnel. When he found his lungs could work again, he struggled to his feet and chased after it. Kiriel's arm snatched his arm, and without thinking he responded violently, swinging his fist back with such force that when it struck, it jarred his arm up to his shoulder, and sent her sprawling several feet across the floor, tumbling over and over and laying still. 

She had responded in time to least lessen the blow. Blacked out, Sephiroth thought as he turned to continue the chase. But the light.. it was long gone. It had vanished with his hope. And his chest felt... suddenly empty with despair. 

Kiriel coughed, groaning as she raised herself to her knees. 

Sephiroth tried hard to contain his rage... Behind his eyes, a migraine was beginning to burn. He stepped forward again to kick her, his hands clenching tightly as they could in their numbed state. He managed to halt before he did any more harm, and tense his body as he snarled, his tone taut and restrained. "You idiot... brat... BUFFOON... you've just lost his spirit and NOW I have *no* idea where to locate it!! If you hadn't blasted that Heartless to bits, I would have had it by now!! I was *this* close to it--"

"Yes," Kiriel choked, standing up and backing away from him, toward the tunnel. "And it was close to *you*... if I hadn't have stopped you, it would have burrowed into YOU and stolen your soul as well!!" She met his flaring gaze and stood together for several seconds, staring at each other intensely... before Sephiroth's own eyes dropped, shockingly, to stare at Ansem's body in despair. He was still lying on the floor where he'd left him. He wouldn't be able to carry him with him for the rest of the trip now...would he?

"There's a way we can find him," Kiriel said suddenly, her voice sounding far-off and dazed. "I know a way. Let's go sit by Ansem." She walked past him toward Ansem, followed by a curious, distraught Sephiroth.

Together they sat, legs folded, beside his body. Sephiroth's leg throbbed in raging agony for every movement he made it do, but the pain was chilled under the cold of his despair. 

"Take his hand," Kiriel commanded of him. "We'll get him back. That little Heartless wouldn't be able to overpower your love for Ansem. He can't hold onto something as good as that. And *his* love for *you* will lead him back to you. To his own body."

Sephiroth began to snap something back, how dare she assume this, when he saw her hand clutching the strange sword at her side with such strength he thought she might have been holding onto a piece of driftwood in an awful storm at sea. But she did not notice his gaze, just stared at him until he did as she had instructed.

Ansem's hand felt frozen to the touch. He could barely feel the gentle throb of his still-beating heart, even as it beat emptily, meaninglessly. Obligated to beat, it drummed on doggedly. Then Kiriel's fingers closed over the wrist of the opposite hand. He waited for another order... hope flickering, then dying on the precipice no rebirth as she stared blankly toward his face. 

What did she expect him to do? Irritated, he began to idly stroke Ansem's unresponsive hand with his thumb, holding onto it tightly. It seemed to soothe him that way; what else could he do?

Sephiroth... I'm here. I'm right here.

"What--" He jerked his head up, focusing on Ansem's face. His eyes were now closed, as though in sleep, his mouth a grim silent line that gave no hint that they had ever spoken. "Where?"

Here... In here...

He brought his hand up to his face. He did not understand. "Here...?" He bit his tongue. _Where is 'here'? _

I haven't gone. The Heartless didn't take me. I'm still here.

"Ansem..." Sephiroth opened his eyes and stared into the face beneath him. "Ansem?" 

Pounding and skipping. Faster, his heart went. Was it his own? Or Ansem's?

And why was his hand losing its steel-trap grip on Ansem's? He looked, seeing that his flesh was slowly becoming transparent. He stared, open-mouthed, before the mysterious glow that enveloped the translucent flesh. Everything about Ansem took on a soft glow, which grew stronger until he was glowing nearly as brightly as the stones of the cavern. 

And the glow vanished while Sephiroth struggled to clutch at the luminous form, this thing that was not Ansem anymore. Now the glow was gone. Everything was gone, and his hand felt warmth trickling back into the fine layers of his flesh. He saw that Kiriel was blinking repeatedly, reaching up to rub her eyes and stare around her as though she didn't remember being here.

"Where's Ansem?"

Sephiroth looked at her blankly and replied in a soft, emotionless voice. "That's something I would like to know."

~~~~~~~

Guilt tormented him for the rest of the night. His chest felt as though someone had mercilessly woken him from a beautiful dream and torn a torpid crater where his heart had been. No matter how he tried to fill it, whether it be with hope, with courage, with the satisfaction that he had done his best, the hole simply grew larger and larger, impossible to mask.

Kiriel seemed confused by what taken place. She remained unaware of Ansem's whereabouts or how she had blacked out and ended up sitting quite comfortable on the ground in front of Sephiroth. The unexplainable always seemed to agitate her, but from the look of dreadful shadows on his face, she chose wisely to keep her questions to herself. 

The rest of the night dragged on slowly. Kiriel went back to sleep, the sword she wielded in battle kept closely at her side. The silver-haired man would not sleep.

~~~~~~~

The smoke rolled up into the sky, roiling mountains of black clouds choked off the sunlight. Below the clouds the temperature was unbearable, below-zero. The streets were empty; the houses were unlit; shadows reigned supreme in the corners of the broad city.

The charred smokestacks of the industrial sector strangled the life out of everything that pushed up through the lifeless earth. Pumping poison into the air, staying alive was a daily chore which all were bound. 

Spots of yellow and brown snuck along the narrow wall between the factory and a residential structure. They moved swiftly, side by side, two small clinging dots that fled before the shadows that bubbled underneath them, pooling themselves into the awful shapes of the spirit stealers. 

Their footsteps sounded louder than their pounding hearts. Slipping underneath the rotted remains of a fence meant to keep intruders out, they ventured beyond and dashed quickly, hand-in-hand, across the yard until they reached the door. They both stopped against it, slamming with a dull metallic thud. It came open when they worked the rusted handle and at last they pushed inside into the warm light beyond.

"Shut that light off," one of the twins hissed, and the other obliged, turning off a gas lamp that hovered by the door. Their hands found each other again, and they crept along the silent corridor into the lower bowels of the warehouse. They found themselves in the familiar, comforting surroundings of their hideout.

Small, pale faces began to reveal themselves within the shadows of their den. These faces belonged to other children, their whispers collecting trickling from one corner of the room to the next, like droplets of water on a still pool. 

"Be quiet," the previous twin said. He released his brother's hand and stepped into the middle of the couches, reaching blindly to turn up the gas lamp in the center of the crate which served as their table. The children gathered around, some of them scrawny, and others well-nourished. All of them had pale, dirt-smudged faces and ratty clothes. 

The twins emptied their packs, revealing their prizes: four cans of food, a small bag of beans, and a battery-powered radio. 

"There," he said as he turned on the radio. A thin empty hiss filled the air. "This way, we'll know what's going on... if somebody gets on the radio and updates people." The elder twin stood back, folding his arms over his chest. His hair was a faded, bleached blonde that could very nearly pass for white. His eyes were two different hues: one was sky blue and the other golden-brown. He wore a simple, faded yellow leather vest over a black, snug-fitting tank top. Torn jeans covered his legs, and well-used boots on his feet.

"What are you all standing around for? We've got that boiler to fix, don't we? Get to it!!" 

The children dispersed, quit their staring, and scuttled off to their duties.

"Dion," his brother said as he sank into the couch next to him. "They've got to eat soon. Don't you think we ought to give them a rest?"

Dion's expression of authority fell into one of downright weariness. "I can't stand this waiting... I wish I had the power to fight these spirit stealers... they killed our parents. We have to survive somehow. That means we've gotta work. This ain't fun and games anymore."

Dion's brother Vax patted his arm as he sighed. While Dion's left eye was golden-brown, Vax's right eye was also golden-brown. It was as though in the womb, they had once shared the same body but were split in twine and given their own respective limbs. This oddity was unique, for although they were also twins, they were easily told apart by their eyes.

Vax wore a brown leather coat, black jeans, boots, and a high-collar, sleeveless black tank top. His attire differed drastically from his brother's, taking a liking to the darker, more gothic styles. 

Their parents died quickly after the emergence of the spiritstealers, being among the first to be victimized. After that, the twins took shelter in this warehouse. Its sheltered walls protected them from the demons, which could go anywhere they pleased. Yet it was the aura of this place that seemed to keep the demons away. 

"We're never gonna stop them...but we'll have to wait for help," Vax answered finally. "Somehow there's got to be someone who can kill them."

Vax was the one who provided the hope that Dion couldn't see. Although darker, he was less intimidating than Dion and often gave light and comedy where there was none. At night, when they could hear the distant wails of the demons in the night, ululating their ceaseless hunter, Vax would try his best to blot them out by organizing short skits and having everyone watch at night to distract them from the always present, distant screams.

Tonight it wouldn't be so. They had to stay up in the first floor and keep watch, just in case. To tend their signal machine, in case someone - anyone - might be on the wire, listening for survivors.

Later that night, after they were satisfied that everyone had had their equal share, Dion climbed up to the tower that topped the warehouse roof. From there, they could see much of their surroundings - the smokestacks in the distance, the mountains beyond, the neat, even rows of houses that marked the residential houses. 

The only residents in those homes now were ghosts, empty of life, sitting or laying down wherever they had been.

One of those houses is mine... I wonder which one? Dion pondered this, staring across the rooftops, huddling inside his coat, for the winter air was chilly when you were sitting down. _They all look so drab... So empty._

The focus of this city was the tallest tower. It was a monument of a man time had forgotten, a man time had etched into their history and their culture always. He was the first to have discovered the electric current - energy, that which defined the very essence of living. 

"I wonder who that man was... nobody remembers his name..." Vax was already there in their tower, and caught where his gaze went. The smoke-congested air made it difficult to make out the dark, indistinct shadow of a man neither of them remembered.

Dion caught his brother's hand again. He felt comfort in the smooth feel of his brother's skin - the other part of himself that made him whole. _Vax...you've always been more than a brother, more than a friend to me... but I don't know if I can tell you that._

In spite of common belief, their kinship did not mean they were exactly the same. One needed the other for the qualities that the one lacked. Without each other, there were a half-painted portrait, an unfinished ballad. Their relationship stretched far beyond the simple term 'brother' - that they shared the same parents and almost exact genes did not mean they shared the same mind.

"Who cares? He's dead now, whoever he is. It doesn't matter who he was now," Dion said almost too sharply. Vax pulled his hand free, and it vanished within the folds of the blankets he had brought up with him.

"You're right... I'm sorry. I guess I'm just trying to think of something else." A gust of wind carried nearly arctic windchill around their faces. Dion crouched his lanky body beside Vax's, huddling beside him as they stared at the megaphone set-up connected to an adjacent tower several yards away. For minutes, they were poised near the megaphone like vultures, ready to lunge at any sign of sound. The wind vanished, leaving the air still and cruel.

Eventually Dion sat down, risking the chill of the metal catwalk material beneath him. He wished he could hold onto his hand again. But the air was too harsh against their cold skin. His hat was barely enough to keep his face from freezing. He reached to touch his shoulder, but found that Vax's fingers once again tangled with his again, pulled across and into the coccoon of blankets, keeping them both warm.

"There, not so cold anymore, huh?" Vax said cheerfully. It was a special gift that Vax could be perfectly content, no matter what the circumstances, and still Dion marveled at how he could seem so happy. His smile was a comfort, sent warm chills down his back that the chill could not penetrate. 

"Thanks," he mumbled, and smiled softly, before something caught his eye. It was the sound that caught his attention first, a soft keening wail in the distance. He swiveled his head toward it, and saw a glimmer of light, weaving unsteadily back and forth between the curling smoke from the factories.

"What is that?...it's coming toward us!!" 

"Catch it!"

"I got it--!!" Vax lunged to his feet, discarding his blankets, reaching up to snatch the light. A glimmering gem, sailing through the air. He jumped like a baseball player catching a homerun ball. The gem smacked into the palm of his hand, Dion saw his fingers close around it. But he had overextended his reach, was starting to fall backwards against the questionable bar that kept people from falling off.


	11. The Potter's Wheel

The Potter's Wheel

--------------

Dion acted without thinking. He kicked his weight forward and reached to slide across the metal grate, grasping at Vax's thin wrist. The tower creaked, cold metal grinding against cold metal as their hands grappled to get a good grip. Dion's body began to slide forward, his ankles striving to hook around the poles holding the railing in place. 

Vax still gripped the gem in his free hand. He stuffed it into a pocket in his jacket and reached to clap both hands firmly around his brother's. They stared at each other with huge, terrified eyes, until Dion spoke. 

"Now why did you do that for?" 

Vax took the defensive. "Oh, I don't know, I was bored... thought it was kinda pretty so I threw myself off the tower to get it!" Vax scrunched his face up, glaring up at him before he shivered. "Are you going to help me or not?"

Dion grimaced. His fingers were slipping. Vax's hands were always so damn dry... "I'm gonna... s-swing you over there... and you grab onto that thing sticking out, do you see?" 

Vax glanced over and nodded. Slowly, Dion started to swing him to the side, and back again. It was a slow, painful process that took patience, but when his arms and shoulders began to burn, it was difficult not to hurry. He gritted his teeth, exhaling sharply each time he breathed in... the pain became excruciating... nearly to the point where he couldn't hold on, but he'd be damned if he let go of his brother.

Finally, Dion judged the distance and discerned that Vax was in reach. "Okay... are you ready to grab it now?" 

Vax turned his head to the side slightly as he swung, nodded, and gazed up at Dion. "I'll be okay, brother. Just swing me over."

"Al-Alright.... Ready? One... two.... thr--" The last vowels got lost in his grunt of strain as he swung him hard, one last time, toward the ladder and the broken metal piece sticking out from the platform. Vax freed his hand, stretching out as he kicked his leg for more momentum, his fingers closing around the cold metal. He was starting to lose feeling in them by this point...

But he was there. He grasped it firmly, his foot swinging out to hook his ankle securely around the ladder's siding. He pulled himself up right, pushed off from the broken support beam and grasped the ladder securely with a loud, gusting sigh. He climbed up, shuddering violently at the feel of solid metal underneath his knees.

Dion knelt next to him. He had gotten back up by his own means, and now rested his hand against his shoulder. "Forget it. No one's going to call, Vax. Let's just get down from here."

The warmth of their secret inner sanctum provided feeling for their frozen limbs again. In silence, after the other youths had gotten to sleep, they huddled together in Dion's bunk bed beneath the blankets, observing the wonder of the gleaming jewel.

"What do you think it is?"

"I don't know..." Vax lifted it in his fingers, and handed it to his twin, his multi-shaded eyes glittering in wonder. "Touch it... it's warm."

Dion held it, cradled it in both hands. In the darkness, it cast an eerie blue glow upon their faces. He lost himself in the depths, infinite and intricate, seeing images flicker like moths near the edges of the precious object. Myriad of colors blurred his vision, blinded him yet made him see. Colors within colors, they coiled around each other slowly, like lazy reptiles.

...me...

He narrowed his eyes and bit his cheek in stern concentration. 

Vax frowned. "What?"

"Shh--" 

Free me. The voice tickled to the edges of his consciousness. It was deep... almost hypnotic. Obviously male for a voice to be so deep... it was soothing, although sad. Someone was trapped inside of there...?

"It's magic," Vax hissed by his ear. "I know it is. We should throw it away."

"If it's magic, then it wouldn't have come all the way over here! We have guards against magic to keep the north away..." 

"So what *is* it then?" Vax reached to take the gem from him, but Dion was suddenly possessed by the desire to keep it. And he did, hugging it to his chest. "Alright, you can keep it, retard... Why are you acting so weird lately?"

Dion squeezed his eyes shut, his face flooding with heat. His hands muted off the light, which was fast fading to a dimmer glow. It still felt warm against his chest, and he tucked it underneath his shirt to feel it strangely start to pound... it felt like a heartbeat, loud against his ribcage like Vax's heart when they bedded together as children. Loud and strong and stubborn. It felt good... strangely 'right' to have it so near.

"I don't know, brother," he whispered hoarsely, too entranced by the heartbeat to give his best friend an answer. "I've been thinking lately... about why we're the only ones who survived. Why this place is so sacred."

Vax merely watched him, huddling close beneath the blanket which was pulled over their heads partway, like a collective hood. Their thighs brushed together, but neither of them noticed their ultimate proximity. "Everyone has left us. Mother and Father.. although Father left us sooner than everyone else... Now our friends are being threatened. Do you think we can actually survive like this forever?"

"No. I-I honestly don't know what to do, I--" 

"So we've got to do something. Just the two of us." 

"But what about--" 

"They're lost, Vax. They're going to get eaten ventually. They need to learn how to survive on their own. That might sound cold but that's the only way..." Dion turned his head toward his brother, saw that his eyes were filled with unshed tears. How cold could have sounded? He bit the inside of his cheek and reached out to brush his fingers through his hair. "Vax... it's not anyone's fault... we can't keep going on like this. We can't take care of everyone."

Vax spluttered at once, his teeth chattering with the weight of what Dion had said. "B-But just give it more time! W-We could teach them, we could do *something*! Are you saying we have to just leave them? That's crazy, no way, I'm not doing it!"

"Survival isn't something you teach!! It's something you're born with. It's the will to live and these kids... they just don't have it." The pain was mounting. It was starting to hurt to say these things. But suddenly he knew that they were the awful truth.

Still, Vax was not to be easily put aside. "No, that's not true! They still can, no matter what, you can't just give up on th--" He choked suddenly, his alarmed cry muffled by a firm hand clapped over his mouth. The boys tumbled over each other on the mattress, as Dion pinned his brother roughly against the tattered, scratchy wool blanket.

"Just shut up!" Dion hissed, tears dripping onto his brother's face. "There's nothing we can do for them! We have to go warn other people... maybe this damned crystal can help us do something about it. If it isn't magic, then maybe it's something that can actually stop the shadow walkers. The rest of the kids will just have to get along without us, do you understand?"

The look of hurt, betrayal, disgust pierced like rusted knives through the tender flesh of Dion's soul. He avoided that look, rose from the bed, tossing the blanket onto him as he backed away. "I don't want them to depend on me..." And he turned away, vanishing beyond the curtain that seperated their room from the main sitting room.

The darkness was comforting. Warmed by the boilers, which had been fixed as requested, it was a place he could escape to when things got too crowded in his mind. He sat quietly on the chair reserved for himself and Vax, staring at the crystal which had remained in the palm of his hand the whole time. Its surface was smooth, like a marble..but it was partially egg-shaped. He would have to figure out a way to tie it around his neck or something...

The thought of leaving this safe haven behind terrified him, he wasn't afraid to admit that. But he was curious of this things whereabouts - of the voice that begged to be freed. He reached down near the edge of the couch as he thoughts, pulling a length of strength off of it. He tied it around the jewel, criss-crossing it in the front and back, securing it tightly so that it wouldn't slip out.

He fastened it behind his neck, letting it hang down underneath his shirt.

There.

He could feel it again. That constant, on-going drumming against his chest. Yet as much as the gem's warmth comforted him, he wanted more than anything to sleep beside his brother again. He hadn't done so in weeks... he was starting to miss their closeness, their times together. Now Vax must hate him... hate him for the decision he's forcing him to make.

But if Vax wanted to stay...

He shuddered. His brother was his strength. His wall of security to fall back on, should any of his plans fail. He couldn't leave without Vax. No. Vax would have to come willingly, or they would both stay. Even if it would kill Dion to do so.

~~~~~~

The fighting style was a thousand-year perfected art, utilizing mainly swords and agility, not so much as strength. Strength was only useful when it was applied properly. These combined in the right proportions created a deadly skill, the skill that a young white-haired boy learned when he was first learning how to walk on his two legs.

The skill was permenantly ingrained in his memory... should he ever experience amnesia, the most likely thing that would remain would be his killing instinct, the ability to defend himself.

In time, maybe he would have entertained the thought of training others. Yet he would not damn them with the knowledge to kill. There were ways to win without killing, without death, yes, but for Sephiroth, he could count on his hand the times he had won a battle without resulting in death. Sadly, it was true for many of his kind.

The darkness in his soul was too powerful to resist at times. Bloodlust drove his sword straight to the heart of his victims, rage and hatred his eternal allies in the battle of life. 

Even now he fought against his helpless agony at his failure. Ansem was vanished, the light that was his soul long gone. Who in the hell knew where it could have gone? Often he would not sleep at night as they battled again and again the demons. The closer they came to the north, it seemed, the more hungry and deadly they became.

He began to see flickers of intelligence in their actions, human intelligence. A sort of patient cunning that was far deadlier than the blind, raw hunger he had felt burning from the lesser beings. Toward the north, toward familiar industrial civilization, crude looking vehicles, and more so, electricity, the Heartless frolicked in the modern playground like children.

The north was a cold place. There, it was wet, cold bitter winter. A dangerous season to battle, but beggers were hardly choosers. 

The city of choice was the capital of the country Kanzellon (the name *sounded* modern, even futuristic in Sephiroth's terms). Kanzellon's capital was the main power center for all of the country's energy needs. It pumped out nearly a million units of energy each day to provide for every technological wonder available to mankind.

This was exactly the kind of place Sephiroth was used to. Kiriel, apparently, was not atuned to technology and the likes of its nature. The closer they came to the border, the less her magic effected her. The only thing immune to the anti-magical field was the sword, which still seemed to hold some sort of sway over her consciousness now and then.

The streets were not as empty as they appeared. Gloomily, the pollution-choked clouds hovered close to the surface of the ground, blocking off much from their sight. Sephiroth walked forward, his step taking him onto the well-managed black-top streets. Behind him, Kiriel struggled to keep up with his grueling pace. 

"If you can't keep up with me, you should go back across the border and wait for me there," Sephiroth said sharply when he no longer heard her footsteps. He turned around, watching her as she was bent double, resting her hands on her knees.

"Fine," she hissed at him. "But I'll wait for you, keep that in mind. We're definately going to get help... and be careful." She rose again, turning to walk away... yet she stopped, reaching into her cloak pouch to remove something golden. It caught the light of a muted yellow lightbulb from the shopping mall nearby and glittered like a star. It vanished into the palm of Sephiroth's hand.

"Hold onto that for me. Just in case. Come back when you find enough information." With that, she turned and left.

Thus, the travelers parted. Sephiroth's way was alone again, and alone it would stay. He hardly minded... he would rather be alone than put anyone else in danger.


	12. Hard Goodbyes

Hard Goodbyes

-----------------------

Dion bit his cheek slightly as the morning brought cold light to his eyes. Nothing felt worse than waking up alone in the sitting room, early than everyone else. It was the loneliest feeling in the world.

Especially when your brother is sleeping in the next room, one you loved, one you needed, and you were stupid enough to fall asleep in the sitting room chair.

His neck felt stiff... unbelievably stiff. Groaning, he sat up and took a glance of his surroundings. Against his chest the crystal throbbed and pounded, warm and sleepy as though it had too had recently arisen. For several minutes it was difficult for him to focus on anything. A wretched throbbing dominated his left temple where he ran his finger lightly over his skin, feeling the vein there throbbing, bulging painfully with the strain of transporting blood.

"Good morning," he whispered to the jewel with a wistful chuckle. Then he rose and walked around the couches, fumbling to turn on the electric lamp that hunched over upon the dilipidated little crate. That finished, he slipped into his room where he found Vax huddled over a small backpack, packing it with clothes and things.

He spoke without turning around.

"That one's yours... we'd better get started before the others wake up."

"Vax...?" Dion approached him, resting a hand on his arm. "You changed your mind?" 

"Had to. I ought to know better than to argue with *you*... even if you're an evil, cold-hearted bastard with no feelings for anyone. But I love you anyway." Vax glanced over his shoulder. For a chilling moment, Dion was uncertain. Was his brother trying to make a joke, or attempting to drill him deeper into his guilt?

Dion picked up the backpack, swinging it over his shoulder as he puzzled over it. Oh, well... insults rolled off of him like droplets of water. "Look, I was thinking we could head back to our house. We could.... we could just go around the kitchen and look for dad's guns. He keeps them in the rec-room in the basement."

Vax shook his head. "I'm not going all the way with you. I'm going on the morning rounds to get some food. You're going to our house. You can get the guns yourselves. Not that they'll do any good against _them_." Mechanically, he finished packing, and reached for his jacket.

"Vax..." Dion hissed as he reached out to press his hand against his arm. "This isn't fair. I'm not leaving without you."

"Yes, you are. It's what you want to do. I understand... you want to find out if you're a hero. How can I stop something like that? All I ask is, hurry up and find out... and then come back and save these kids, do you understand?"

Dion gritted his teeth. "Brother..."

"Just... be quiet!! Here!" Vax suddenly shoved him toward the door. "Get out! Take your damn stuff and go, and get that damned magic crystal out of here, too!"

Dion grabbed his jacket, turning around. He flung the blanket aside and crossed the room in a few simple leaps, vanishing through the doorway into the crisp, subarctic air.

His house was located nowhere near this district. He had to walk very carefully along the outside of the city, taking pains to avoid areas where he knew for *sure* the demons would emerge. Running was the only best option, for no weapon on this side of the border or the other was capable of killing them completely.

It was a regular house, two stories high with a singular basement used for games and displays. Their mother had been an avid collector of trophies - some of them, she said, even belonged to their father before he died. If he remembered correctly, their mother ought to still be at the house... in body. Not in mind.

Her soul belonged now to a demon that had stolen her soul... it had barely gotten inside the house when the twins fled, fleeing with the other children to the safest place they could find - the warehouse. But now, the streets were empty. Silence, other than for what little electricity was left to run the news radios... which buzzed in and out with random technological nonsense that made no sense to him.

His house was as he had left it. The shadow walkers did not particularly destroy things randomly. Their one true hunger was for the hearts and souls of men. So, the village district was left practically untouched. Natural forces had weathered the buildings over the past weeks for sure, but nothing unnatural seemed to have occured.

He stood on the sidewalk in front of the porch steps. Fear seized hold of him, rooting him to the spot. That unnatural chill of their presence which still lingered locked his feet to the ground. Truth be told, he didn't *want* to go inside the house. But he had to get those guns.

The door was still open, unlocked, swinging open and shut in the bitter breeze. It would surely be cold in that house. But colder still would be the sight of his mother, prone, sitting on the floor in the kitchen, gazing as she wasted away to nothing.

Finally, he walked into the front door. The hardwood floors were dull. Without attention, they began to do so at the drop of a hat. He walked inside, seeing the chair from the kitchen. No, no, don't look into the kitchen. Where are the stairs? The cabernet carpet met his feet and without a sound, he walked the familiar steps. It was oddly alien to find himself here again... and alone.

He wished Vax were here. His smile might warm the shadows of this hollowed tomb, make the shadows fall away to reveal familiar, bright faces.

But there was nothing bright left in this shadowy place.

The bannister was cold against his hand, but he always used it to guide him safely down into the unfamiliar darkness. He stopped stopped when he was suddenly faced by the pitch black gloom that yawned below, waiting to swallow him completely. He fished out a flashlight. Comfortable with his new weapon, he continued... keeping his head down as he recalled the countless time he'd hit his head on the low-hanging beam just before the last three steps.

He crossed the chilly room, swerving around the pool table, running his free hand over the velvet smooth softness. Against the back wall, he saw his father's gun rack. It once loomed there like a silent sentinel, guarding the precious weapons inside with the imposing broad lock. It was open now. The wide oak doors hung open, torn straight off the hinges, clinging with its last strength to continue its duty. The guns hung there with one single space missing. His father's favorite hunting rifle.

No doubt it would still be clutched, white-knuckled mother's hands around the stock, having uselessly emptied every single shell in the entire clip. Not a single demon had dropped from the bullets. 

Dion shuddered, quivering in the cold of the basement. He reached down into the large gun cupboard, opening the drawer in the bottom where he felt for the familiar smooth, old box. These were the guns he wanted, the customized .45's his father had made years ago but never used anymore. They were unlike any weapons that the government possessed, for his father claimed there were far more advanced than the old-fashioned pistols the officers of the city possessed. 

He lifted the box, turning around to set it on the pool table and blow the layer of dust away from the surface. The clasps came undone in a matter of simply putting aside the flashlight and flipping the metal latches up away from the lock.

The pistols were smooth and well-worn, treated redwood stocks and silver barrels, both set for automatic or manual. He ran his fingers over the carefully etched initials, the curvacious D, the swooping V. 

He realized he didn't even know his father's full name. All he knew of him were his initials... D.V. And his mother would never tell neither him or his brother who he was... it's as though it was some awful secret that needed to be kept.

"He was probably some sort of magi or something..." Dion said softly, and felt the crystal throb against his chest. Immediately he felt warm, the sensation prickling down his arms and his legs. "What? Do you think he was, huh? I wish you could talk... you spoke last time. How come you won't talk to me now?"

The gem hummed. He sighed, lifting the guns out of the protective, fuzzy crimson molds. He had to find the holsters he knew they would be kept in. He set them aside, turning to rummage through the drawer again, mumbling things such as, "Stupid..belt..where the hell are... no, that's not it..." 

Finally, he lifted it out with a triumphant, "AHA!" It rang in the little basement and he stiffened, huddling on the ground out of fearful instinct. Then he stood up, slipping the belt underneath his jacket behind his back, buckling it around his waist. It was kind of loose, but he could fit the leather strap through the beltloops of his jeans and adjust the belt itself later. 

It was when he had secured the weapons to his person that he encountered a problem. Not only were they cumbersome and strange to carry, Dion realized they needed ammunition. Feeling outright foolish, he once more turned to search the gun drawer but found nothing of the like.

"That's stupid," he growled. "How in the hell did he shoot these retarded things if he didn't have any bullets?"

He found nothing that fit the pistols in the drawer. He stood up again and rubbed his hands over his face, grabbing the flashlight. Feeling as though this whole trip had been for nothing, he shut the drawer with a loud smack, putting the box back inside. He clambered up out of the basement and crept out into the silent hall. It had grown darker outside during his adventure. The light that now spilled through the windows was a muted gray. It bred shadows in places that there previously were none. Near the kitchen, the light was strongest but he wouldn't venture there just because it was lighter.

He tucked the flashlight into the back of his pants, moving across the carpet quickly, finding himself taking a wide berth around a bulk of darkness that hovered near the living room cabinet. He passed so close to the kitchen... no, *don't* look in there!!

His eyes wouldn't obey. His head turned.

Her flesh was barely clinging to her body. Starvation ate away at her youth, making her seem like a living mummy, her eyes bulging from the sunken depths of her eyesockets. Her chest moved in and out by pure habit alone. Her fingers were thin, gnarled as she clutched the stock of the rifle. Empty shells were scattered around her legs. A leaf blew in through the door and landed against her hollow cheek, but she did not move to swat it away.

Dion's heart lurched into his throat. He gagged on it, turning to fumble to the door and get outside as quickly as possible. The chill in his bones was harsher than the wind that bit against his flesh. Hot tears, quickly freezing by the air, blinded his eyes and he couldn't see as he dashed into the street, encountered something hard and fell backwards.

When the stars and bright light cleared from his vision, he rolled slowly onto his side. He felt the flashlight jabbing into his back and it *hurt*, knew that bruising was going to happen whether he wanted it to or not. He heard the light crack of footsteps walking by him, saw the boots responsible for the sound walking around toward his field of vision. Then a hand passed in front of his eyes, as though offering for help.

He took it without thinking, and the hand pulled him to his feet. Looking up - way up - he saw twin orbs of glowing ocean blue staring at him. Expectantly. As if waiting for him to speak. 

"I wasn't stealing," he stammered suddenly. "That's my house and I went inside to get something so that when people come to get me, I can defend myself and I didn't want to... didn't mean--" 

"Be quiet," the man said. "Please. I'm not the law. And even if you were, do you think I would care?" 

Dion frowned, stepping back. "No...." 

"Good boy." The man stared at him a moment longer, before lifting his eyes beyond him. His body tensed and suddenly poised to spring, his hand on the hilt of a massive looking sword sheathed at his waist. Dion jumped out of the way, turning in time to see a shadow walker rent to shreds by the man's sword.

Dion gaped. Never, *ever* had he seen a shadow walker killed. The thing fell apart like a mannequin made of black ribbons, freeing the bright, shining heart inside. It bobbed, hovering, before it streaked straight into the sky, making a right angle as it flashed and flew off at full speed, parallel to the ground.

"What the hell did you just do!?" 

The man turned around, looking at Dion with an arched brow. His hair was silver and bright, tied back to a pony tail that swung freely behind him as he moved. "I destroyed it," the stranger answered coolly. "Surely you didn't expect me to negotiate over coffee?" 

Dion felt stupid, yet directed his irritation toward this arrogant fool. "I've never *seen* one killed before. Nobody's ever *destroyed* a demon before." 

"Perhaps they're too cowardly." He shrugged. "It seems to me this place is just as I have heard it to be... There's absolutely no drop of magic here. Anywhere."

Dion hissed. He felt the crystal humming even louder and wondered if this man could hear it. _Shut up, _he begged it silently. _Be quiet, please!!_

"Maybe that's the way we like it. Look what magic does to our world! Where do you think these things came from?!"

"Darkness. Not magic. Not even magic truly kills them for good. Who are you, boy?" The stranger's gaze captured his own again. He slipped his hands into his pockets and stared back, gave him his name.

"My name is Sephiroth. I'm searching for...something. Information."

"Are you from South Tarbina?" Dion looked around suddenly as though trying to be wary for other black beings, his heart pounding loudly... or was it the gem's?

"Yes.... I'm afraid this is the first time I've visited this part of the world." 

"Lucky you... if you're looking for information, you'd best take me along with you. I know this place better than anyone. And... I'm probably among the few _sensible_ people left." Dion looked down, hoping Sephiroth would take him along. It would do him a great deal of help to have him for protection. It would make his job a lot easier.

"Do you know how to use those?" Sephiroth said, looking him over critically. He wore a full-length cloak of midnight black, snug pants, boots, and tunic. (He was amazed this man wasn't freezing, or else he was made out of wood.)

"I'll learn really fast, won't I?" That is, if he had any bullets for them. Yet he, too, had a tough composition and grinned up at him with boyish confidence.


	13. Searching

Thank everyone for reviewing... I know, it's a good story... I'm working so hard on it... so I hope it's turning out alright. It's curtainly not "Snowfields" material!! *LOVES that fanfic..wishes the author will finish it* Anyway... read some more!!

-------------------

Searching

----------------

Sephiroth was a powerful figure. He spoke little, only asking certain questions as it concerned the government, people in charge. Where were they located? Was there any military? 

Dion could only answer as best he could. But it was difficult when his mind was twisting around the possibility of Vax's whereabouts. Vax would be looking around for food for the kids about now... or he could be in trouble. Dying. _ Vax must surely hate me now... how could I leave him?_

"...Hey."

Dion stopped. What did he want *now*? Turning, he saw him standing still, his head turned upward. The boy looked forward again, tipping his head back to see shapes, bird-like and silent, swooping back and forth across the sky. There were three at first, and then four he saw.

"What are they?" Sephiroth asked him as he stepped up behind him. His voice was tense, obviously displeased if they *were* more of those demons. The silver-haired warrior had called them the Heartless. It was a chilling name... a fitting title for things whose sole intent was to devour the hearts of the living.

Dion shrugged. His hands were beginning to find it easier to rest near his guns, although he hadn't a damned clue what good unloaded guns could do. "I don't know... they could be government spy planes, looking for survivors." Or Heartless.

They would have seen them sooner if they *had* been, though. He craned his head back, so much so that the glittering gem almost became visible. He clamped his hand over it, clutching it about his throat and finally he turned to Sephiroth, hurriedly tucking it back beneath his shirt. His face flushed red for no reason, but he spoke.

"Look, it doesn't matter. We've got to get their attention, whoever they are, right? Besides, I've never seen any flying sha-- Heartless before. Right?"

Sephiroth looked down at him. For a moment, Dion thought he saw a flicker of a smile passing over his features. But it was pained, and it vanished, crushed underneath an invisible force that was greater than his kindness. Instead, he answered shortly, "Yes." He held out his hand. "Give me one of those." 

Dion blinked. Then realized he was pointing to his guns. Blushing furiously again, he reached to remove one with as much false skill as possible, handing it to him.

Sephiroth took it, weighed it in the palm of his hand, then reached for his pocket. He couldn't very well use magic right now, otherwise he would try to get their attention with some sort of spectacular explosion. For now, this would do.

He aimed for something explosive. There was a small, old-fashioned vehicle turned over on its side in the middle of the road, and focused his sights on its hood.

"It won't work, you know, it's not--"

His voice was lost. He was ashamed to say that he might have screamed, but he didn't remember if he had or not. The car exploded unexpectedly with the harsh crack of the gun releasing a deadly projectile with enough force to send it up into roaring flames.

He uncovered his ears, his hands shaking, reaching for the gun again as Sephiroth handed it back to him. 

"Loaded? Perhaps not. It could be magically loaded, however..." The tall man stepped away, looking up again toward the flames. 

Wow. You should apply for the giant genius/jack-ass award.

As Dion struggled to make his hands obey and fit the weapon back into the holster, safety notedly back on again, he heard the engines of the planes becoming louder. The thin drone of not-so-high tech engines filled the air; propellers squealed as one of the planes began its slow descent, lining up with the broad street. Dion was yanked back onto the sidewalk near one of the buildings as the plane sank lower and lower. He could see why anyone would mistake it for a bird. Its shape, though old-fashioned, was designed to give the correct impression.

It was an impressive machine. Dion had rarely seen them. But he knew that the higher powers of society had the means to design such oddities with ease. Formidable in flight, it was not *just* a spyplane - Dion made out the faint outlines of submachine guns attached just below the wings near the cockpit. 

The plane roared as it slowed, its three wheels grating on the snow-packed street. As it slowed to a stop, Sephiroth's fingers slowly released its iron tight hold on his jacket but left his hand there, resting lightly. 

The cockpit opened after a few seconds. A man emerged, sporting black jumpsuit and helmet, which he quickly removed and set inside the cockpit. He climbed down and faced them before he began to walk toward them.

"Survivors?" the man asked sharply, his hand lingering near his waist where he, too, carried a weapon. He was right to be wary. The Heartless were cunning now, more than ever.

"Yes," Sephiroth returned his stare, and held it. 

Dion wondered why they said nothing until finally, the pilot spoke. "Yes... I see it. There is no deathless abyss in your eyes. Are there others? Where are you from?"

"I live here... used to... my mother--" Dion swallowed, and continued quickly. "And there are a bunch of kids near the warehouses in the eastern industrial district. You've gotta get them, they're just kids. My brother is there with them."

"Don't worry, lad, keep a stiff upper lip. Help is coming, don't worry. Now, my friends in the air have got others on the line and should be here shortly. My name is Axel." 

At this moment, Sephiroth stepped away from him and moved toward the plane, looking it over, before he turned toward Axel. "Are you with the government?"

"Ah... well, not--" The pilot was interrupted by the crackle of his radio. With a spontaneous bout of cursing, he reached toward his belt and pulled the small object out, holding it up to his ear. "What? Oh, yes, of course... copy that. Yes, they're fine. They're not demons. Send transport right away to these coordinates, you idiot!!"

He turned it off, his face flushing faintly, meeting Dion's incredulous gaze and Sephiroth's coldly amused one. "We're not exactly organized at this point. When they first came, we were..highly unprepared."

"So I see..." Sephiroth's amused expression fell into one of seriousness. "What are you doing at this point? Surely you must have goals..."

"Well... retrieve and rescue at this point. There are numerous places around here where the demons don't go. We're keeping the survivors and military personnel there for now until we can really start to prioritize our efforts."

"Foolish. Can't you see it's too late?" Sephiroth suddenly turned on the pilot, reaching to seize him by the throat. The pilot, young by the looks of him, was startled as he stepped back, losing his footing, and hung helpless as Sephiroth had him at his mercy. "The Heartless have already overrun this world. It is completely hopeless to do anything. There's little you can do... the minute you and yours step outside, the Heartless will find you. Always. That is their nature, their purpose."

Dion lunged without thinking, and grabbed onto the arm that held the man in place. He pounded on it. "What are you DOING? Let him go, are you crazy!? Let go of him!!"

The man was plainly insane. The transformation had taken not even a second to occur, and by then Sephiroth was trying with all his being to choke the life out of the terrified pilot.

Yet, by some miracle, Dion's voice must have broken him out of his insanity. Or maybe it was the low rumble he heard. Or the slight vibration beneath their feet. Sephiroth dropped the man, shaking Dion off as though he were a small kitten.

Dion stared at the bleak sky, jolted upright when he became aware of what occured. He stood up too suddenly and was at once shuddering violently with the wave of chill. The gem burned against his chest and he clasped it with his back turned to them both, trying to still the harsh voice of it pounding in his brain. 

The pilot rubbed his throat, coughing as he regained his breath. He backed away from Sephiroth, whose gaze went nowhere but to the backs of his eyelids, his glowing eyes closed tightly, his arms folded across his chest. His foot was tapping impatiently, his brows knit together as a chill breeze ripped across the street. 

"They should be... here in a second. That's probably them now." Axel rose, dusting himself off and keeping notable distance between himself and the silver-haired man. 

A minute passed before they were faced with two heavily armored vehicles. There was only one thing Dion wanted to know: whether or not Axel was telling the truth about Vax and the kids.

And what could he do if he was lying?

~~~~~~

My brother. Vax.

I hope these guys are just yanking my jizz and telling me bullshit... and even if they were serious, I'm suddenly not too sure if I want them to rescue you.

Are you angry with me? Will you forgive me? It was never my intention to leave you behind... I wanted you to come with me... then we could have been heroes together... 

Who will be the coward in this legend? Me or you? 

Can you feel how bad I'm feeling right now? It's said twins can feel what the other feels... is it the same with you? I've known you for so long... it's got to be true.

If so, do you understand? Can you understand me?

Can you hear me...?

'Cause I'm saying 'I love you' with every ounce of me.

~~~~~~

I'm searching for you, Ansem... Soon. Please don't loose yourself before I can bring you back to me...

Sephiroth pooled his concentration on Dion. The pulse of energy that sifted from his body was suspiciously familiar; it was unmistakably similar to Ansem's pulsing heart. But why would this boy share the same beat? 

Oh, but the sound... the sweet sound he had missed...

Dion raised his eyes. Captured his gaze. Sephiroth hardened his own and held it. Dion smiled and looked away.

"You going to make it?" the boy said, pulling at a loose string on his tattered denim pants.

Sephiroth didn't reply. Puzzled, he only looked away and frowned.

"You look sick... that's all." 

"I-I... I'm fine." The man closed his eyes. "Just thinking..."

"What about?"

"Consequences. Life. A friend... I lost him in the forests before coming here... outside Southern Tarbina's famous college..." 

"I know that forest. I mean, on a map. Did he...?" Dion waved his hand vaguely, like something floating off into the air.

"Yes."

Dion bit his lip. The crystal... it had been flying from that direction in a way. As though it needed to find a place for itself fast. Was it someone's heart...? He could feel it chanting softly, but the words kept getting jumbled together... he couldn't make a damned bit of meaningful sense out of them.

"Do you think you'll find him again...?"

"I think I already have."

The boy choked. He masked it by starting to cough... which wasn't all that hard, because he *did* need to cough. He let himself turn from Sephiroth and stare at the boring metal wall of the inner vehicle since there were barely any windows. 

Sephiroth watched him out of the corner of his eye and stiffened when he saw his hand move toward his chest, near his neck, to clutch at something. He had seen him do it before... and he burned to know what it was that attracted his attention.

"Y-You're crazy," the boy mumbled uncomfortably. "Bloody *looney*."

"Perhaps you're right," the silver-haired man said, amusement embalming his tone of voice with an eerie ring of truth. "Perhaps I *am* mad.... But insanity is not without reason. Often it may seem that way... but the root of madness is usually more terrible than the insanity itself. Do you pity the insane, boy? Or do you cringe?" 

"I don't know what you're talking about..." 

"Then perhaps you should realize that silence is the safest route on the path to wisdom." 

Dion turned to look at him, and glared intensely for several long seconds. He had nothing to say. He supposed he was on that path to wisdom starting right now.


	14. Foundering Hearts

This was withheld...due to the fact that I was drawing this out way too much....but since everyone wanted me to have Sephy get Ansem back, here it is!! But not in the way that you hope... Chapter 15 will knock yer bleedin' socks off!!

Foundering Hearts

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Kiriel made sure that her items were up to par. She only had a few healing potions left... and that wasn't enough to keep her prepared for any of the Heartless.

In the distance, she heard the rumble of engines. The sound made her cringe. What could machines do against the deathless ones? It was laughable... the Northerners were fools if they thought simple guns and bullets could do a thing to them. Perhaps they could release the stolen hearts... but as long as the scourge kept coming, they couldn't be able to win.

And this damned sword... she found herself caressing the steel as she held it in her lap, feeling it hum softly at her touch. What was she going to do about this sword? 

"Where did you come from...? I know you're enchanted... and I know you can speak. You just don't speak to *me*," she hissed at it, staring at the reflection of her eyes in the stainless blade. "Tell me your secrets. Are we going to win this war?"

The weapon's strength waned a moment. It seemed... indecisive. It was more of an echo of its will in her thoughts, what it meant to do, what it did not. Suddenly it thrummed to life.

(They are coming.)

"What?"

(Humans.)

She lifted her head, rising to her feet slowly as the sword hung at her side by her fingers. "Where?"

(They're walking on their feet. They appear to be afraid.)

Kiriel saw them creep from beyond the brush, their feet making little sound. They wore the remains of military attire, their armor stained and in some cases, even broken. There were nearly half a dozen. Less than a match for her magic. Yet--

They saw her and the leader motioned to stop. He wore a gun at his hip, but in his hand was a blade, twelve inches long and an inch wide, tapering to a wicked point. He brandished it, before dropping it to his side. He had dark eyes, with unfathomable depths, and a wary countenance that reminded her of a wounded, dangerous predator.

"Are you a deathless one?" he demanded, tensing his legs. He was the most ragged out of most of them, but she saw the commander button on the lapel of his coat. 

"No. I am Kiriel of South Tarbina. I am an agent trying to discover the true source of the demons."

The man seemed to hesitate. Then he sheathed the knife, his posture relaxing. "I am Commander Radu... my small regiment was destroyed by the demons. We... are all that is left." He walked toward her, taking in her attire. "You *do* look like a Southerner... you look no older than my own son."

"We don't have time for idle banter. I have an ally in the city as we speak, trying to gather information. I can't go beyond the capital's borders, for my magic is dampened from their technology. Basically, I can't do jack there. I'm waiting for him to return."

Radu seemed to consider this quietly. Then he lifted his head, gazing at her with cold determination. "As we were posted in Sateli, we discovered something that may prove... interesting.

"When we were fighting the deathless ones, we started to notice something about them. About where they were coming from. The ground underneath the Sateli springs seemed to be darkened by some sort of liquid. It was pumping out of the ground near the temple. And the demons were coming out of the damn temple itself!"

"Sateli? But what about the priestesses? What happened to them?"

"We assume they're all dead. Their spirits stolen to give the monsters power. But we're not sure... we also learned that there was another sort of 'spring' coming from... what appears to be the capital itself. I fear that we are all in very grave danger."

Kiriel felt the chill in her chest growing. "So what do you want my help for?"

"We'll help you get into town if you show us the way to your friend." Radu held out his hand. "An alliance between the North and South. Together, we can crush the demons and save this planet."

~~~~~

The man responsible for the dismarmament of the army was the same man who was seduced by the Darkness. Sephiroth and Dion learned the tale from a talkative soldier on their way to the one sanctuary of the army and villagers. It was a distant district of the capital, outside the town where the trees still grew.

He went missing shortly before the darkness came. It was said he was acting strangely around his soldiers before he finally disappeared, neglecting to arrive at an important military meeting concerning rebels from the east. 

"His name is Feld Marsonis and we believe he's at the center of the infestation here in the city. We've reason to believe he's stationed near the city center... but why we're not going to investigate, is beyond me. There's no monsters there to block the way..."

"Gathering their forces elsewhere, maybe?" Dion said softly. "I don't know. But if you think he's there, then that's where I'm going to go. I have a responsibility to protect... some friends of mine."

The soldier looked over at him, sitting beside them in the vehicle as it jounced along the roads toward the hidden human city. He grinned, his hair sticking to his forehead underneath his helmet. "You're a good kid. Someday you'll make a good soldier if you want to join."

"Oh," Dion laughed, blushing slightly. "I-I don't intend to... I just want to protect the people I care about. Like my brother..."

"Where is he now?" 

"He's at the hideout with the other kids. Hopefully, he's helping them... he... he believed that there was still hope..." Dion trailed off, silenced. He didn't want to talk about his heart-wrenching failure at leadership. The result of the brothers' altercation was still fresh in his mind. 

It was a touchy subject. He didn't want to discuss it with strangers.

He laughed shortly. "Never mind." 

In a matter of minutes, they arrived at a deep-cleaved tunnel in a hill. It was of solid steel - the doors opened by mechanical means, leading down an electric lit tunnelway, wide and tall enough for the armored vehicles to pass through. Down they went, several feet, until they reached a large, wide room that appeared to be a parking area.

Dion climbed down first, starting to walk off to stare at the other things before a heavy hand knotted itself into his jacket and yanked him back, leading him roughly around toward the rear of the machine. The boy glared over his shoulder.

"Let go of me, you lousy jerk," he mumbled, and wriggled out of his jacket. Down here, it was quite warm so he wasn't sore about letting Sephiroth watch his coat dangle uselessly, absent of boy.

"You're going to get into trouble, child," Sephiroth returned softly, a coddling tone to his voice as he reached over to pinch his cheek. "Don't get smart... and don't go places where you shouldn't."

"How long are we going to stay here?"

"As long as it takes to raise some courage into these cringing dogs."

Dion narrowed his eyes. "And how do you intend to do that?" He rubbed his cheek, and growled. "Don't touch me like that again."

"With my charismatic charms, boy." Sephiroth stepped around him, dropping his jacket over his head.

"Come on," a soldier said. "I'll show you to your rooms before we can commence your interrogation. I can't gaurantee anything brief, but it should only take no more than an hour." 

* * * * * 

Sephiroth was unable to take his eyes from the boy as he answered the few questions he could. How his voice strained to keep steady... how he tried so hard to stay calm. He marveled at his success, because Dion never faltered once. He was clear, concise in his reasoning. When it was his turn to answer questions, Sephiroth did so in the same manner.

The entire time, Sephiroth's eyes flickered toward the secret lying beneath Dion's shirt. He followed his hand with his gaze to the necklace each time the boy looked worried or unsure. Gaining some sort of strength from the unseen relic, Dion would continue with his words with renewed vigor.

The interrogation ended. Information was scrutinized. As the meeting came to a close, he stood up slowly and regarded the gathering of men around him with a hardened stare.

"We're not staying here forever. I have my own business... hopefully with what you know, you can defend yourselves and these innocent people you want to protect. Personally, though, you disgust me. You are all but a sad waste of my time. You pollute the natural wellsprings of this world with your blatant prejudice against your wise elders of magic and that, I think, is why you will fail."

"What?" Dion blinked, looking up sharply. "I thought you said--"

"Forget what I said," Sephiroth interrupted sharply, and turned to leave the room and step outside into the cool shade of the enclosed forest. He didn't need to look behind him to know that Dion was following him, but he kept walking. The young boy continued to follow, just as he had hoped. He manuevered through the trees, the scent of pine and fresh air reminding him with a heart-thudding sting Ansem's words that fell so close to his ears, pressing close to him...

How foolish he had been.

He had only wanted to be close to him... The man needed comfort, needed him, and Sephiroth had time again denied him because of his own foolish reasons. And now he was gone. 

"Sephiroth!" Dion called, and ran up to him, reaching to grab hold of his arm. "Stop! Please... tell me what's wrong? You're acting so weird!"

He did stop. His arm burned where the kid had grasped him. He turned his head slowly, his eyes fixating on his face, then lowering to his throat. Tugging his arm free, his hand reached out, snatching at the string that dangled against his skin. Dion's face flushed slightly, but he didn't move.

"What is this?" Sephiroth asked him with more sharpness than he intended. The thin string seemed to vibrate slightly at his touch. 

"N-Nothing imp-portant," Dion said raspily. 

"Then you don't mind if--" The man pulled the string from his throat, lifting the weighty object from under his shirt. Dion gasped; Sephiroth's eyes came alive at once with the glow of the crystal.

"I-I found it!! Well...my brother found it and he didn't want it so he gave it to me," the boy hissed, his hands trembling at his sides, unable to move himself to defend the gift that came from his brother. 

Cool oceans of blue turned to ominous stormy, choppy green. "You found this...?" he whispered hoarsely. His voice wouldn't work. His quivering fingers slid down the length of the string to take hold of the warm stone, staring into it and forgetting all else. It flashed and pulsed softly like a star, thrumming desperately as though to be freed. The voice came as clear as a distant bell on a crisp ocean sea.

Sephiroth. Sephiroth, free me!

Dion bit his lip suddenly. His eyes twitched. "It's talking to me," he said. "Get it off me... get it off! It doesn't want me to keep it!" 

Without hesitation, Sephiroth snapped the string as he yanked the stone from around his neck. He clutched it, stepping back several steps unsteadily - nearly tumbled over against a birch tree - keeping the object against his chest. "Ansem!" he breathed out loud, sinking down onto a broad tree stump.

Dion's relief was evident. He frowned in deepening concern as he followed his path to the stump. "Ansem...? Is that.... is that a heart?!" 

"Yes..." Sephiroth answered. "Ansem's heart... I lost it... I didn't think it would be so easy to find it again." He tore his gaze away long enough to give the boy a measured look. "Thank you."

Thank him...? For what? 

"I didn't really do anything... I just...I just had it, that's all."

"You took care of it... it was a gift from your brother, wasn't it?"

"Yeah..." It sort of was... but Vax was more disgusted by it than anything. He didn't think he would consider as gift-giving material. 

"And do you love him?" 

"Well, yes, I do! If anything were to happen to him, I don't know... what I would do!"

"Then it meant something. Your unconditional love protected Ansem's heart from diminishing. It kept him safe. So I'm thanking you... and apologizing from the way I've been treating you."

"It's alright... I guess he's your... boyfriend, right?" Dion shook his head, feeling his face redden as he looked down at the pine needles. "So... what do you think will happen now that you've got him?" 

"I don't know..." the man said after a decidedly long pause. "I... honestly don't know, Dion." His face was a mixture of pain and uncertainty, but it softened slightly when he stared into his hands where the gem glowed like a reassuring beacon. 

"You're going to stop the darkness, right?"

Sephiroth closed his eyes, closing his fingers about the light of his heart. His thoughts whirled and buzzed like a whirlwind. He heard Ansem's essence in his thoughts, clinging to his own and keeping himself there for safekeeping. It was no mystery that Sephiroth had to destroy the darkness himself. But how?

Hopeless. It was hopeless. How was he to undo the damage that these demons had wrought? When not long ago, his own heart was poisoned with dreams of death and godly ambition, regardless of the price of millions to reach his goal?

But the voice breezed like a cool autumn wind:_ I'm here. I have always been. Darkness holds no power. We are free._

"Are we free?" He shivered. Beneath the weight of all that had happened, he realized Ansem was not totally gone. He had him with him all the time... but that didn't make them free. They were already chained to this world, fate driving them to save it whether they wanted to or not.

* * * * *

His warmth felt wonderful to have again. And it was shameless for him to enjoy it. The press of their bodies together, in spite of the shirts that kept their skin apart was something the silver-haired man would never take for granted. He knew this was a dream... a wonderful dream, but he didn't care.

Ansem was with him.

He tangled his fingers gently in his hair, watching his chest rise and fall with his light, even breathing. They weren't asleep, but they didn't need to speak. A small smile touched the corners of Ansem's mouth before he opened his eyes and met his gaze. He shifted underneath his arm, and leaned up to kiss his mouth.

"You're falling," Ansem said, his lips pausing over his throat. A warning bell rang, and suddenly the pair was wrenched apart, Sephiroth yanked one way and Ansem another. 

His voice screamed his name, but the growing darkness consumed it in the chaotic maelstrom of sound that followed. He couldn't see him.

He woke in a cold sweat. He felt at his throat, felt the stone and tears burned in his eyes. It was still there. It was still warm, but the dream made him wonder how long that would last. What had Ansem said...? Memories failed him, one tumbling into the next...

The army told him that the darkness was coming from somewhere around the city's central square. The one where the large statue rose like a blackened, tainted monument to a man long forgotten. If that was the beginning, then to the beginning he would go. It was a start: find the source. Evaluate. And take care of the problem.

Where Sephiroth would seek the ultimate end.


	15. The Sentinel

One may call this the climax of the story...but I'm not sure. This is becoming an obsessive-writing syndrome for me. An epic which may go on maybe only 3 more chapters... or 13. I'm not quite sure yet. But it will surely continue! I hope I'm keeping you guys hooked.

The Sentinel

------------------------

"This is it," Axel the pilot said. He swept a hand through his sweat-soaked hair after he removed his helmet, pointing down the long, broad empty streets. "This is as far as I can take you... any closer and this bird'll be Heartless chow."

Dion peered over Sephiroth's shoulder into the gloomy chill. The statue, as indescrepit and vague as a mountain in a distant valley. But in truth it was merely not even half a mile away. Kanzellon's capital, Eris, was known as the Sentinel City due to the monument. 

Sephiroth jumped out of the cockpit, landing squarely on the pavement. He turned, catching Dion out of the air as he jumped down as well. They walked down the street, waving as Axel's voice sounded in their ears to wish them luck.

Sephiroth wore the gem around his throat. Only he had replaced the string with a sturdy chain of silver, attaching it partly to the string that Dion had used.

The chant of soft voices filled the air. It wasn't wind. Nothing stirred the snow on the ground. A brown-green eye fixated on the figure cloaked in black that stood facing the towering monument.

"There's a door there," Sephiroth murmured as he started walking, the Masamune sword bouncing against his hip. "Ansem says he can sense it. The door to this world."

"Does that mean...you're leaving?"

"Maybe... but it can also mean that that may be where the Heartless are getting through."

Dion brushed his sticky hair away from his face and fingered lightly the smooth handles of his right .45 with his free hand. Darkness was a strange, alien thing. A nameless essence to be feared... but at its center, always, was a man. A man to control it, to be controlled.

"There's someone at the center of all this bullshit," Dion said softly, clenching his hands. "And we're gonna get 'im, right?" 

"Definately," Sephiroth said with all the certainty and will of a man whose path was set in stone, ingrained in the very atoms of the universe.

His excitement and rage burned down to the very nuclei of his cells. He could feel it stirring the old murder-lust that has stolen many a life in war and in madness. But it wasn't insanity now... it was determination, desperation, that ached in his soul for freedom. For a life without struggles... a life without the murder-lust pounding in his chest, fueling his strength.

But in order to do that... this was just another door to open on the path to redemption. Salvation. And a way to Ansem's heart.

The snow fell almost in mute reluctance as they trekked through the cold, dry powder. A snowflake here dropped against Sephiroth's cheek; another drifted and clung to Dion's hair. He brushed it aside, his senses straining, ever-alert for the characteristic silence and cold of the Heartless, the tell-tale quiet that signified their proximity, their awful presence.

No cold came. No silence unlike the calm, natural silence of a deserted city clouded in snow.

Yet something else was troubling - possibly more unsettling - than the Heartless themselves. For the closer Sephiroth came to the colossal monument, the more details became clear. His heart started to race. His step quickened as much as he wanted to turn away, refute the truth that was blossoming before him.

The pair approached the flank of the monument. The face of it could not be seen, but as they moved around the firm black marble base, the identity of the man became clear.

Sephiroth made out the face of the man, standing several feet from the base so he could see the majority of it. Above him, the face stared coldly from trailing spikes of hair that framed his face. The sweep of the cloak was finely crafted, as though made by magic or by monumental skill. The likeness was unmistakable, however.

The statue...

It was Sephiroth himself.

The world slowed down. He barely registered his strength suddenly failing him, that his knees sank into the snow that bunched up around the base of his monstrous likeness. His eyes fell away from the face of the thing, instead seeing spots before them as he gazed into the snow. His chest burned. Air seared when breathed.

After a moment, he looked up, blinking away tears of shock and maddening familiarity. Suddenly everything around him seemed terribly familiar... everything that he had done, he felt had done before. He had walked these streets. Had fallen time and time again into darkness.

The door before him was proof. It stood in the thin air, an ordinary iron door, firm and strong and terrible as though mimicing the industrial strength of the city.

Then the boy, Dion, moved into his field of vision. He seemed confused. A piece of white hair had fallen across his odd-colored eye and he spoke, but Sephiroth didn't hear.

He *did* hear a voice speak behind him. "I knew you would come here. It was unmistakable. Foretold long before even *my* birth. Welcome. What you are looking at is the door... the Door to other worlds. And soon, the Door to Kingdom Hearts."

Dion's gun flashed from his hands as he shot, almost instinctively, toward an unseen man that had not yet entered Sephiroth's line of sight. He stood up, turning, seeing the man's body doubled over slightly. But it was not groans of pain that came from him, but laughter.

"Who are you?" Sephiroth hissed hoarsely, not even remembering to have the sword in his possession in hand.

The stranger laughed raspily. He shuffled forward, his attire completely otherwordly. A long cloak, stitched alien language in the trimming. His body seemed bent from laughter rather than from pain...

"I am the guardian of the door to Kingdom Hearts... and you're travels have made my greatly interested. Your progress... with you and your... companion." He lifted his eyes, which were completely white... besides the pupils. The faint outline of color surrounded them, but hardly enough to appear human. His face was framed with long black tresses, straight, his eyes outlined almost shocking Sephiroth with its Egyptian likeness.

Dion backed away. Sephiroth could only guess the thoughts streaming through his mind. He was absolutely _sure_ he had hit him. Positive! So why wasn't the man bleeding to death in the snow?

"What do you want with...me?"

The man's lips quirked into a little insane smile. He straightened, opening his arms out wide, his cloak opening with him... it appeared to be as vast and as all-encompassing as a black hole. The words on the trimming shifted... like living things, they moved, snaking along the fabric with ease.

"You will show me the way through the Door. Long I have guarded the secrets of Kingdom Hearts. But no longer... it will be mine. The power that has been kept secret from me will belong to me and me alone! I will be the master of darkess and of light!!"

----

Darkness...and... light? Darkness and light?

These words sound familiar to me... but not as much as I'd like them to... they mean something... but what? Darkness...

Light?

Darkness....

Darkness in my heart. I remember its cold embrace, enfolding me, seducing me into the shadows of my soul. Jealousy, rage, ambitions all tumbled within me. I remember tasting desire the first time I ever laid eyes on the boy, Riku... how bold, how ambitious and angry. How futile his attempts were to veto my influence over his soul.

This man seems so familiar...but I don't remember him from any of my past. My days in Hollow Bastion were long, at best. Because of the oddity of the Rising Falls, and our unique technology, people refrained from staying too long.

But my Sephiroth, he is more disturbed by this man's presence than I am. Yet he doesn't even know him!!

-----------

The terrible scream that broke the uncomfortable silence was the thing that brought Dion to his senses. He raised the guns, both of them now, and shot multiple times. But the bullets, magic or no, did nothing.

The boy fell sideways, landing in the snow. Behind him, the door creaked and rattled unnaturally as though some great force from beyond were striving to escape through it. He realized the awful screaming was

Sephiroth.

His eyes widened as he viewed the man, grasping his head, nigh tearing his hair out from the roots from some unseen torment that Dion could not see. 

And the man continued to laugh, lifting his head to the sky. His glittering black eyes held a terrible light in them that was not a kind thing, nor was it a welcome sight. For there was light everywhere, coming from the around the edges of the door. The essence and the idea of light was bursting towards its inevitable freedom.

Sephiroth was in agony.

And was there nothing he could do? 

Dion snarled, and lunged across the snow to put himself between Sephiroth and the Guardian. The Guardian towered above him like a black, ancient tree... its secrets dangerous and unknown, unfathomable darkness pouring from his being. Yet Dion's face, twisted in rage and anger, met the cruel mask of the Guardian with little bravado.

"Get away from him," Dion said coldly, squeezing the barrels of the handguns and readying them to fire again. As long as it would keep the man safe. "You're not touching him, you're not going to this Kingdom Hearts!! Whatever it is, it sounds important and it doesn't belong to anyone!"

"It will belong to someone soon..." The Guardian sneered, and he raised his hands, which were lost in the darkness that pulsated suddenly from his being. His breath came loose in a ragged long exhale.

Dion raised the guns and fired again.

Three things happened.

The enchanted weapons sent their deadly projectiles once more into the man's body. He jerked backwards, a look of pain suddenly sprouting from his face. At this same moment, the darkness flew free from his hands like hungry, flesh-eating birds of prey, slamming themselves against Dion's body and tearing, gouging at his face as they shrieked.

Sephiroth's screams abrubtly ended, and a light unlike anything the Guardian had seen suddenly sprang from the silver-haired man's chest, a concentrated beam that stole the color from the world and washed everything in muted shades of gray and amethyst.

The beam felt warm. The pain in his face faded, and Dion only felt the warmth. It was a soft pulsing... the familiar throb of another heart pressed against his. However, it was even closer than that now. It was inside of him. It breathed life into him, breathed courage and love and compassion, all the things that made up Light and all things. 

He saw it bursting through his ribcage, leaving his flesh untouched, and penetrating the infinite blackness of the Guardian's cloak. 

The Guardian howled.

-------------

The cave loomed around him - an endless universe of blackness and cold. He felt the absence of his light-god like a rusted rod of steel had been thrust into his chest. There it festered, like an open wound, bacterial hatred and viral pain spawning in the cesspool of oozing liquid that came from this wound.

His light-god had betrayed him. His soul longed to bask in the compassion of his god again, languish under the soft caress of love that came again and again so often that he was always certain it was there and so he did not need to think about it.

The transformation that resulted was a hideous one. The soft play-dough of his being was ravaged, savagely by unkind hands and molded again to a shape for the worse.

He felt around his chest for the warmth of his god one last time. He wept and cursed. But his god was not there.

Ansem... why have you betrayed me?

-------------

In the next few moments, the Guardian quivered, his screams ending. His cloak was no longer the black of night, but the vague twilight gray. He fell forward, and breathed his last mortal breath.

Dion's arms found their way fondly around the still form of the fallen silver-haired man. The light still pounded all around the boy... he realized how brightly he was glowing, that he was a point of light in a dark, merciless wilderness of steel and concrete.


	16. Creation Realm

Creation Realm

----------------------------------

"There was neither non-existence nor existence then; there was neither the realm of space nor the sky which is beyond. What stirred? Where? In whose protection? Was there water bottomlessly deep? There was neither death nor immortality then. There was no distinguishing sign of night, nor of day. That One breathed, windless, by its own impulse. Other than that there was nothing beyond. Darkness was hidden by darkness in the beginning; with no distinguishing sign, all this was water. The life force that was covered with emptiness, that One arose through the power of heat.

Desire came upon that One in the beginning; that was the first seed of mind. Poets seeking in their hearts with wisdom found the bond of existence in non-existence. Their cord was extended across. Was there below? Was there above? There were seed-placers; there were powers. There was impulse beneath; there was giving-forth above.

Who really knows? Who will here proclaim it? Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation? The gods came after-wards, with the creation of the universe. Who then knows whence it has arisen? Whence this creation has arisen - perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not - the one who looks down on it, in the highest heaven, only he knows - or perhaps he does not know."

-Ancient Nasadiya ("There Was Not") hymn contained in the ancient Hindu scriptures, the Rig Veda. Source from 'Textual Sources for the Study of Hinduism', tagged by "Parallel Myths" by J.F. Bierlein

-------------------------------------------

Balance shifted. The door had opened. The key that was Ansem's fell into a thousand glittering glass-mirror pieces, reflecting sun-golden and ocean-blue, and incandescent light. No more was the shining crystal that contained his essence of light, the light that had destroyed the Guardian, the light that had kept Dion safe from the Heartless and the light that kept Sephiroth toiling too far into madness.

A fierce wind blew the cold, minute blades of snow into his face. It pulled them into the bright, blinding world beyond where the light spilled like a gushing fireworks shower of pure white. Straying fire-fly sparks escaped from above, flying in a thousand different directions toward the sky. But the world of steel and concrete was swallowed by the realm of sunlight beyond the door, threads of both good and evil twining around Sephiroth and Dion's legs and arms.

Dion's grasp couldn't hold on for very much longer. Their bodies were poised at the threshold of Kingdom Hearts, withheld only by the ferocious will to hold onto each other not out of friendship, but of mutual desperation. 

Then the dual forces yanked them apart. Dion flew out of the door; Sephiroth vanished inside it.

Vast ocean.

From horizon to horizon. The sea and sky seemed one and the same. He was falling into the clouds, reflected in the mirror-still gloom of the ocean, it's glassy surface undisturbed. He fell forever... the descent threatening to burst his lungs and destroy his body, as it went on far beyond his abnormal endurance. And yet when he thought he could take the pain no more, the cold of water suddenly stole the last of the air from his lungs with his final gasp.

Down... deeper he went, his cloak and jacket gone and just his pants and shirt, but through the fabric the water soaked to his skin and beneath it. Was it cold? Was it warm? 

He fought for the surface. He needed the air... his mind was as clouded as the aquatic atmosphere that sought to pull him farther into the darkness.

A dawning realization struck him as his strength began to wane.

I have failed.

He let it alone. He let the tug of water swirl around his body, wrap him in a seamless blanket and bear him down into the fathomless nothing that loomed below him for uncountable miles. If he tried to swim free, it would still be there beneath him, waiting. Waiting to swallow, to consume. To destroy his mind with its maddening simplicity. 

There was no escape.

I have failed myself.

The source of the light above the sea was now beyond his sight, whatever it was. He continued to hold his breathe, gasping uselessly what air remained to circulate in his lungs, again and again, poisoning him slowly... more slowly than if he had just taken a deep gulp of the burning liquid.

I failed you...

Ansem...

Can you forgive me?

Tears stung his eyes somehow. He opened them, and nearly jerked back in alarm but the blanket of water tightened about him. He gazed with blurry eyes at the object floating just a handful of inches in front of his nose.

It was round. The oblete sheroid dangled in the water, the chain glittering as though encrusted with gems. The blanket released him enough to reach up and slide his fingers around its silk-smooth surface. The surface temperature was warmer, much warmer, than that of the water. 

It came to life at once.

The stone burned his hands. He screamed without sound, his hands closing around it as much as they wanted to let go. But the blanket was gone. He was not going down. He was going _up. _At least he believed it was ascension, ascension toward the light that grew stronger. The water roared past his ears, pressing the blazing jewel against his chest. And, as all living things move toward the light as its energy, its source of motion and breathing, so did Sephiroth, focusing all his determined being onto the point of light that shined just beyond his reach.

He broke free of the surface. He foundered, gasping and sobbing as his one hand clutched the hot stone, his hands blistered and burning from its intensity. He tredded water in an ungainly fashion, moving from one side to the other. All of his body seemed to be screaming for a painless respite from the waking world.

Then as soon as he thought he would start to wish for it, his wish came true.

* * * 

Cool waves... gentle breeze... the ultimate paradise...

"It's just a dream."

I don't want to...

"It's just a dream, warrior. Wake up."

His parched lips opened, and he spoke in a gutteral moan. "I'm not a warrior."

"Yah. Could've fooled me, get off your arse, mate." Rough hands bore him up to his feet. He hunkered down again, zero effort in everything. The world blurred and swung awkwardly to one end of the horizon to the other. Then he shuddered once, and the world simply rippled out of view again.

It must have been a dream. When he awoke again, he saw clouds passing overhead against a backdrop of perfectly azure blue sky. Clouds, fluffy and white like whipped velvet, sifting across his vision lazily. 

They infected him unexpectedly with hunger. And at the edges of his lower calves, he felt the tickle of water and soaked cloth. Then, almost with a spurt of violent energy, he threw himself onto his side, reaching around his throat for the crystal. It wasn't there. 

The sunlight blinded him as his gaze swept a white sand shoreline, which stretched only a short distance on either side of him. Beyond that his vision faltered and it was a vague blur of greens, browns and grays. His senses smelled the salt, and felt the grainy texture of the hot, hot sand. The heat itself blistered his already bleeding hands.

Bleeding... he looked at his palm, his fingers shaking and his vision wavering besides. But he saw the deepening marks, the crimson fluid that caked through the edges of the infected flesh. He closed his hands and almost sobbed with the pain. The jewel was either nowhere to be found, or he couldn't see it.

But all the same, that it was gone was enough to send his hopes plumeting. The silver-haired man sank onto his side, not even wincing as he pressed his cheek into the freshly hot sand again. He moaned quietly, closing his eyes once more and seeking the sheltered vertigo of unconconciousness.

* * * *

"There's too much within to be sure if he's going to survive. Chances that he will pull through are nearly nil..."

To his alarm, he was not in the burning sunlight. But he was very hot... Someone, whoever they were, had dragged him into the shade and into the squatting little building. From inside, it looked like a decent little shack with one room and a bed. The owner of the voice who had spoken was gone. Or perhaps simply had not been at all.

The shack sat beside and slightly below a pool of water which was constantly fed by a glittering waterfall. The effect was a perpetual rainbow, a vanishing and reappearing ghostly band of colors.

And above the island rose the sun, fighting free of the darkening clouds. The clouds themselves became nothing more than remnants of the terrible storm that had preceded the coming of the strangers. The green leaves dripped, small jewels of water glittering and evaporating, or falling to the earth into collective puddles.

Wooden outcropping dotted the beautiful landscape, coloring it with human habitation that neither interrupted nor imposed upon the natural loveliness of the realm. It was a playground for the idle mind, a wonderland for adventurous youngsters.

It was Destiny Islands.

* * * 

For several days, he wandered in and out of the waking world against his will. When he dreamed, he dreamed of the terrifying oceanic hell that loomed beneath him, always reaching, always striving to claim him as another of its many countless victims. Sometimes he also dreamed of Ansem. But these dreams were never kind. Every dream ended with some terrible catastrophe that ripped them from one another, leaving Sephiroth bitter or weeping in the ramshackle bed where he rested.

He saw nothing of his caretakers. Whenever he awoke, it was always when they were gone.

His wellness did increase. His strength returned; he slept less and less. Finally, after nearly a week and a half, Sephiroth found himself awake and restless in his bed and eager for the fresh sea air that called to him from beyond the makeshift door of cloth.

A particularly fine breeze blew across his brow, cooling his skin. He sat up slowly, growling at the cloth, before forcing his aching body to do his very bidding - which was to stand. So he did. He sat down again, fighting off dizziness, before he tried again.

This time he remained upright. Although his clothes were dirty and the rest of him soiled with sea-salt, he found it necessary to get out and explore. His invisible caretakers were nowhere to be found. The roar of the waterfall caught his attention, and he made it his goal to reach it.

It was fresh water. The mist felt wonderful against his face. It did not carry the sting of salt, nor the harshness of the ocean. He waded, blindly, into the pool which was only about knee-deep. He sank down, letting the water bear him up as he gripped the edge of the pool which was constructed of stone.

"Found the water, hm?" 

He winced, shutting his eyes tightly. "It is true that creatures who come from the sea, must eventually return to the sea. "What the sea giveth, the sea also taketh away."

"So it is, so it is..." A hand rested against his shoulder, light and strange. He opened his eyes finally, turning his head back to stare into the face of the being. 

It was hard to see. For one, the man wore a black mask over his face, made of white cloth. His hood was also white, but beyond that his eyes were shadowed completely. The faint dull glow of yellow took the place of the eyes. His outfit was of the same manner: short white cloak, white gi pants and sleeveless shirt, accompanied by a loose silver belt and samurai sandles.

"Who are you?" Sephiroth demanded as he pushed himself away from the edge of the pool, staring at the man. He was crouching, a katana sheathed casually at his side in an ornate obi, a ball of red string with several strands dangling from the pommel.

"I am Hikaru," the man said, standing up. "I found you by the sea. There was nothing I could do for you but to keep you cool and hydrated. I am glad you recovered so well."

"Are you the only one?"

"I'm afraid I don't understand."

"Are you the only one that lives here!?"

"What kind of answer do you want?"

"The kind, honest one," Sephiroth replied. He began to pull at the edge of his shirt, and tore it off, throwing it onto the stones at the edge of the pool, dunking his head briefly to come back up, sweeping his thick hair behind his ears. He looked intensely at Hikaru, waiting for his answer.

Hikaru refused to speak. He bowed his head, the hood covering everything in his face now. "Destiny Islands," he said softly. "That is where you are. But there is no one here but a young girl and several young children. They're home now... they do not know that I am here, nor that I have been taking care of you. It is well that they do not know of me."

Sephiroth moved himself toward the edge of the pool. For some reason, he was once more exhausted. His head throbbed as he tried to pull himself onto the ground around it. Hikaru took hold of his arm, helping him, and sitting him down so that Sephiroth's bare feet still remained submerged.

"Are you a spirit?"

"Maybe... Maybe I am an angel."

"Must be... you saved my ass from drowning."

Hikaru watched this man carefully. Saw how his hand moved to his throat, the sudden twisting of pain in his expression. He made no sound to acknowledge it, but reached to grasp the hand and rest it against Sephiroth's knee.

"I don't know what you're looking for," the hooded stranger said quietly in a comforting manner, his low timbre ringing of familiarity. "But whatever it is, I didn't find it on the beach anywhere beside you."

"That's alright..." Sephiroth closed his eyes slowly, bowing his head so that all the shimmering silver hair masked the tears glittering in his eyes. "It was ...very... precious to me."

Hikaru continued to watch him. Finally Sephiroth motioned that he wished to stand, and Hikaru helped him, letting the other lean upon him as they moved back into the warm shack, leaving a dripping trail of water the entire way there until Sephiroth finally sank down onto the ground in the small shack.

The surge of despair came unexpectedly. Especially for Hikaru. Unprepared for the sudden fit of emotion that tore the breath from Sephiroth's lungs, he had but to sink down next to him and wrap his arms around him.


	17. Spirit Hikaru

Darker Angel's Notes: Thank you for reviewing, everyone!! Chapters are slow in coming, and I apologize. It's a very difficult time to be writing, especially since it's the school year. Damned school... but I am not complaining... heh. Much. 

Remind me to get a job so I can buy more Yu-Gi-Oh cards... I suck. *Pouts* I don't know how this chapter is going to turn out... it's the first 'edition' of it...so if it's choppy, I apologize again. And again and again...

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Spirit Hikaru

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Sephiroth explored the island mostly alone, but when the children came Hikaru taught the man the secrets of avoiding them entirely so they could return to the safety of their hidden points.

One such point was in the treetops, far from view but isolated. No child had the capability as far as Hikaru knew to reach this place. It was the focal point for their hideouts, where they could observe all but remain unobserved themselves.

The children were here today. Sephiroth was not alone. Before him, Hikaru moved amidst the undergrowth where the children didn't wander as they traveled toward their chosen watching place. Hikaru wore a bit of cloth, wrapped across his shoulder and ending in a pouch which contained a number of fruits and two coconuts. 

They reached the tree. Hikaru shifted the makeshift pack and began to ascend. Once on the first branch, he reached his hand down to help him up.

"You can make it," the man said softly. "Give me your hand."

He eyed the stranger's hand. But eventually he grasped it strongly, pulling himself up into the tree beside him. Then they climbed further, Sephiroth no longer needing his aid as much the further they went. When they reached the top, there was a cliff that was part of the island itself, a rocky dirt-covered outcropping shaded by the tallest of tree-leaves. Here was a small dip in the top of it, preventing either man from inadvertly falling off through the canopy below.

The ocean and the surrounding isles stretched around them. On either side of the ridge, the trees rose tall and monumental, shading them from the oppressive sun. The stone was smooth and cool, and Sephiroth sprawled out on his stomach beside Hikaru. 

He still couldn't see his face, even as they lay cramped up close together as they were. He set the parcel of fruits aside and turned to Sephiroth. 

He spoke. "Tell me of the worlds where you came from."

"You know about the worlds...?"

"I know of many things. But you must tell me about your adventures." With child-like eagerness, he pressed close, head bent to listen while his glowing yellow eyes fixated beyond the gathering of the young people below on the sand. 

They sat in a rough circle, the red-haired girl, the half-slouching and sprawling boy with the ball, the brown-haired little kid and hyperactive little girl in the yellow dress. All of them appeared to be talking about something of great importance, but the words didn't quite reach the watchers' ears.

Sephiroth didn't supply the stories he had to tell. The past bubbled against the surface like acid, threatening to wear away the lining of his sanity. His sanity remained intact... but only so much. The peaceful quality of the islands soothed his burning thoughts. But when Hikaru asked him... what of his adventures? He wanted to scream.

Dion... his brother, Vax, Axel, Kiriel... None of them mattered.

Ansem...

"I don't want to talk about it," Sephiroth stated flatly, leaning his chin on his folded arms, watching the children. They appeared as though they were smaller versions of serious adults in very deep discussion. The red-haired girl looked saddened... her eyes gleamed with tears, even from this far away.

"She is searching for her lost friends... they were taken by the Darkness and pulled beyond their world into another. The Keyblade master recovered the lost princesses of heart and stopped the Darkness. Thenceforward, the worlds were saved but in order for it to remain that way, the walls between the worlds had to be locked again so that no one could travel to the others. Her friends are lost..."

"Who were they?"

Hikaru answered quietly. "Sora and Riku."

Sephiroth watched the procession. The girl in the yellow-dress moved over to the red-haired girl and hugged her, where the red-haired girl started to cry softly.

"I know what it's like to lose someone..." Sephiroth said softly to the unhearing girl. "I know what it's like to feel pain... that you had failed..."

"You didn't fail," Hikaru interrupted, laying a hand on his shoulder. He gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Please don't say that... because it isn't true. You escaped from another world. You have defied the walls between worlds and now, you can do as you like."

"You don't understand!" Sephiroth shrugged his arm away, sitting up and reaching to grab one of the fruits. He bit into it, and felt the gentle sweetness of it dribble down his chin. He swallowed the mouthful and turned to glare at Hikaru. "And I didn't do anything. It was all him, he saved me from the darkness, and now he is lost to it forever!!"

Hikaru regarded him coolly with the emotionless yellow balls of light that replaced the reassuring eyes that Sephiroth needed now. He stared back, feeling the Mako blaze, and then tore his face away to stare at the dripping fruit.

"He isn't," Hikaru whispered. "He isn't lost. Why do you keep saying that? Who is he?"

"Ansem." Sephiroth's voice faltered slightly. A change overcame Hikaru but he did not notice. The strange man straightened up a bit more, his eyes dimmed and he sighed.

"Ansem was the man who unleashed the darkness," he responded. "He was the one responsible for the near destruction of the worlds. And then he was bound vanquished and banished to another realm. Is that him?"

"What?" Sephiroth turned, staring at Hikaru like a man who had been punched in the face without knowing the culprit. "Ansem?" 

The masked man turned away and swallowed. "It is true. He who tried to unveil the shadows and bring them into the light suffered an untimely fate... an eternity in suffering. It is where all go who threaten the life and light of the universe. And you brought him back?"

"But he's gone! I lost him... besides, you've got him all wrong now. He's not like that anymore. The Heartless took his heart, but I found it even if his body was gone. And when the door opened... the Guardian..."

Suddenly Sephiroth abandoned the fruit. His body came to life as he lunged, grabbing the cloaked man by the throat and pinning him underneath all of his weight. He peered close, his fingers sinking beyond simple cloth, pinching the delicate windpipe. "Who are you?" he hissed, bending so that his forehead would almost be touching the edge of his hood. "Tell me who you are, Hikaru... what are you doing here? How do you know all of this?"

"I, too... am... a Guardian..." Hikaru whispered. In the shadows of his hood, Sephiroth saw a face. "It is what I have become..."

The silver-haired man slowly loosened his grip. He sat up slowly, his hand against Hikaru's throat. He felt the firm, living flesh underneath him jar with the coughs taken to clear the throat so he could breathe. 

Can it be...?

His voice was firmer now, louder, clearer. "When I was murdered, my spirit wandered, so I took this body." He smiled grimly, shaking his head slightly. 

That voice...

No.

"That's not true," Sephiroth hissed lowly. "I-- Ansem's spirit destroyed you!!" 

"No... Perhaps you don't understand clearly, Sephiroth. I am the spirit of Feld Marsonis... my body died long before the Guardian of Tarbina ever came into being." He smiled, laughing softly. "In fact... it was my spirit that brought him into being... tossed to the ethereal winds, I found a haven inside that guardian's maddened mind."

Sephiroth seemed to listen with mute awe and horror. His eyes were still narrowed but seemed unfocused... glazed, it seemed, with dumbstruck apathy.

"I used him," Hikaru finished with a light push, forcing Sephiroth to sit beside him in the alcove, not on him. "And Ansem did exactly as I thought he would do to protect you... he destroyed the Tarbina Guardian's body... and led me here."

"What--" He couldn't speak. Words failed him. This monstrosity... whoever it was... was wily and cunning and had far more power over spiritual things than Sephiroth could ever imagine. Through simple chance, he had unwillingly guided this monstrocity to this peaceful place... and Ansem was lost forever and--

"What about Ansem?" Sephiroth demanded softly. His eyes began to blaze again. Furious, he stood up on his knees, clenching his fists. "Why did you save me?"

"That," Hikaru said quietly, "is a secret." With a satisfied smile, he closed his eyes. From that instant to the next, his body vanished altogether and left Sephiroth crouched alone, furious and wounded and enraged with no way to vent without gaining the unwanted attention of the gathering children below.

He took up the makeshift sack of cloth at last, wickedly infuriated. Without a glance he turned and flung the foul gift as far away from him as possible, and listened to its satisfying crash as it broke through the canopy, scattering colorful, multi-shaped orbs in every direction.


	18. Reunion

Author's Notes: Sorry again for the lateness... I've been bogged down a bit with things and school and... basically, I'm kind of stressed out. So hopefully, I won't torment Sephiroth - or my faithful readers - too much longer...

The last chapters before 13 were already pre-written, if you are all confused. No... I'm not a super-human speedy plot machine. This was actually something I wrote that I was holding onto since I started the game... in any event... much plot clarification here. Basically, a guideline for those of you who are confused. (Short) chapter 18 is here. This is also the last chapter of this half in the fanfic. ^_^ but fear not! There is more in "Fear Not".

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Reunion

Cold was like mirrors that revealed what in your heart you would never want to see. It was like a painting that reflected each sin and moral desecration one commited, a thing of shame and intrigue one would wish to keep hidden from the world forever.

Sephiroth's sanity decayed rapidly during that hour when he hid like a wild beast in the forest, watching the children, and listening to their conversations. Hikaru the coward, the evil spirit of a man gone insane by shadow and greed, never showed his face again... but he knew that eventually, he would return. 

He served some purpose for the man. Otherwise, why would he abandon him here for safe-keeping with a bunch of children who couldn't cause a scratch? Yet showing himself to them seemed suddenly a terrifying, forbidden idea. The moment he attempted to cross the threshold of bushes onto the open sand, he panicked and turned, never to consider breaking the unspoken taboo again.

Time passed more slowly when one is insane... it doesn't seem to pass quickly enough. With his own blood, drawn by the sharp end of a branch, he painted his arm in tribal, bizarre designs, and pretended with a childish perspective that he was a savage who would go in at night and murder the children. 

Their world was not his world. He stained its purity and its very air, for his presence embodied everything wrong and grotesque. His frayed mind was proof enough...

And ever the thought of Ansem crossed his mind, the rage would bubble, broil, and outright churn like an apocalypse. Each time, it would pass quickly... but the next would always last longer, burn stronger. It left him exhausted and all the more deranged.

Hikaru would know his rage... and this moment, he wouldn't let him escape... his death would last for every moment of Ansem's suffering. Surely Ansem suffered. But only thoughts that he was safe... was at peace, kept the silver-haired man surpass the breaking point. 

Oh, how cold a _mirror can be..._

* * * * *

Dion turned his back on the door.

For whatever reason, he realized that with the coming of the planes that flew overhead and the receding shadows and the coming of men with their machines, there was nothing he could do about the door, or Sephiroth and the other man who fell through it.

It was gone now. He looked over his shoulder. Empty air stood where the door once occupied space. No trace or figure gave any indication it was ever there. Then he turned his back on it, tears spilling down his cheeks for no reason. 

He hoped to One God that Sephiroth found his love... somehow, their spirits may find each other...

For now, he had his own to worry about.

Axel met him as he began to turn into a back-alley. He didn't know why he was being so ridiculous... he supposed he thought he was going to walk all the way back to Vax. _My brother... I had to go, but I'm coming back..._

"Kid... hey, kid? What happened to Sephiroth?" Axel turned him around, and was alarmed to meet a pair of mismatched colored eyes. 

"He's gone!! Now can you please just let me go and find my brother!?" Tears spilled down his cheeks again, except this time he wasn't angry. He was desperate.

"We've got him," Axel told him, frowning gently. Then he stepped to one side. "I was just going to tell you. Him and the kids are all safe... it was a hell of a time to get them out of there, but... I managed it--" 

Dion pushed past him, looking around, wiping his eyes clear. It wouldn't do to meet his brother crying like a girl. He turned his accusing, needy eyes to Axel, his very being screaming _where!?_

Axel motioned for him to follow. The man moved quickly... that was a good thing, as Dion wanted to get to his brother as quickly as possible. They passed through a sea of green and gray splotches before his eyes. He ignored it, for his eyes sought the gaze that would match his own like a backwards mirror.

He was jostled into a vehicle. The shadows were thickly draped, hiding the standing form in the distance. Then he heard a voice.

"He told me you were alive. I almost didn't believe him."

Vax was standing up, grinning near the back front of the cab of the vehicle. His hands were knitted behind the back of his head, a large grin on his face and it seemed to Dion years since he had ever felt this complete with that smile. He moved toward him, and attacked him with his weight, his arms going around his chest. His brother rewarded him with a soft curse and a soft grunt, hugging him around his neck possessively.

His laugh felt like music. It shook them both, and he started to laugh as well until they were both crying, sitting on the floor, one crushed against the other, their cheeks pressed together as they struggled to catch their breath.

"I sent Axel to get you."

"I know."

"I said if they didn't," Dion replied with a little giggle, "I'd torment them and be really annoying and pester them for stupid stuff like ice cream."

"And steal everyone's left shoe," Vax supplied helpfully, his hands locked around the small of Dion's back.

They closed their eyes and sprawled out on the rough-hewn cot. It was the most comfortable thing Dion had ever slept on, felt soft to his weary, exhausted body. He tipped his chin up at his brother, and was surprised to see him blushing. With a stupid expression of dawning realization, he quickly removed himself from his brother's body.

That's right... he still doesn't know... 

"Sorry," he mumbled, sitting on the edge of the cot near him.

"Don't apologize."

"For what?"

"For whatever it is you're saying sorry for. If anything, I should be the one to apologize... I didn't mean to yell at you. I had no right to judge you... and we were sitting ducks besides. If you hadn't sent Axel, we probably would have died. The safehouse thing wasn't working anymore and the shadow walkers would've killed us dead," Vax explained, sitting up and turning to look at him. His clothes were fresh and new, donated by the militia. He rubbed his wrist before he continued, smiling. "Enough about me! I wanna hear all about you. Tell me, what did *you* do?"

"I didn't do anything," Dion admitted. "But your gift... I had to give it to someone."

"Gift?"

The boy flushed, cleared his throat and clarified. "It was the gem you caught out of the sky. It was somebody's spirit. A man found me, said he was looking for someone important to him... but it wasn't until later that he found out I had it. Before then, I thought he was just an ass... but--"

"It was a person?"

"Yeah... that would explain how it got past the anti-magic field thing... or maybe the field generator got damaged somehow. I don't think it has."

"No. I was told by a soldier that it's still on... but it's kind of obvious that it's useless to have it on.. they're considering turning it off so the Magi from the South can come up here and help us."

Dion reached over to clasp his brother's hand. _I want to tell you something. _"What are we going to do now...?"

"I don't know... I want the fighting to stop. I want us to be safe again... and maybe mom will be turned back to normal."

It's really important. "Yeah..."

"What's wrong?" Vax rubbed his thumb over his knuckles. His eyes noted the shiver that rolled through his brother's body and for a minute, he thought maybe his brother had caught a cold. "Are you sick?"

The boy leaned toward him. Their hands switched places, and Dion held _his _hand. Their fingers locked, and he pulled his brother toward him as he slid his thigh over to press his. "I don't know. I missed you, that's all... listen..." He swallowed, grew pale... "I have to tell you something..."

Is it wrong to love you this much?

Vax's eyes never left his face. He followed wherever his brother's eyes went, but always returned to see the mixture of confusion and emotion alternate in the soft minute movements of his mouth. Then he pressed close, and kissed the soft mouth, once on the corner, and once more with more care fully. Dion didn't even gasp. His breath was choked off momentarily, but he breathed again. Deeply.

"What is it, brother?" Vax said quietly, as he leaned his head against his shoulder with a small smile.

Have you dreamed of me, sweet, vague and wonderful dreams? Dreams where you didn't want to wake up?

Because

I've been dreaming

of you.


End file.
